Thursday 18th July 2013

Mountune Focus ST and Fiesta ST: Driven

Chris Harris gets an early taste of the Mountune Fiesta ST and its Focus ST big brother

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The Mountune touch is most certainly a good one. It was brave of Ford to allow third-party branding on its performance models, but the take up on previous generation models was strong, and now we have a new upgrade for the Focus ST and the Fiesta ST arriving on the same day. I drove both yesterday.

0-100mph in 14 seconds? Quick Focus!

Focused performance
You've read the news story, but just to remind you, the Focus ST kit gives 275hp and 295lb ft. It's a very classy piece of calibration work, to the point that initially you're a little underwhelmed. Where the previous five-cylinder model with the Mountune kit immediately felt unhinged, this one builds boost more gradually, but the numbers are still impressive. On a stinking hot day and a pretty poor launch I managed 0-60 in 6.4 seconds and 0-100mph in 14.0 seconds. Ford claims it'll go under six seconds to 60mph, which I find a little hard to believe, even if you had several goes at trimming the 0-30mph time. The standing quarter was 14.7 seconds.

The engine's character is pretty much identical to the standard motor only with more of everything, all of the time. My only gripe is that when you try to shift very fast right on the limiter the ECU sometimes delays full power by a fraction of a second after the gearchange. Shift 500rpm lower and it doesn't happen. The noise is especially good for a four-pot.

Still cheaper than a Clio RS, now with 215hp

Big brother's little brother
The Fiesta upgrade is less involved but for me even more impressive. The numbers are 215hp and 236lb ft on overboost. Yes, that's 236lb ft in a Fiesta. The results are very amusing on the road. In fourth gear the little Fiesta will nail stuff with much more imposing badging. I managed 6.5 seconds to 60mph, 100mph in 15.4 seconds and the standing quarter in 14.94 seconds. The car is much easier to launch than the Focus, the 2.7-second 0-30mph time shows what should be possible in the bigger car, but even then I don't see the Focus going under six seconds to 60mph.

So for an extra £599 you can have a fully warrantied Fiesta that will do 0-100mph in 15.4 seconds. That is absolutely bonkers and could make life even more difficult for the Clio RS. There will be a video soon.

Are you thinking what we're thinking?

One word of caution, we asked an insurance company whether these fully-approved upgrades affected premiums - for a 21-year-old male they reckoned an additional 10-15 per cent.

The Focus ST upgrade includes an airbox and a fancy air filter, so costs quite a bit more at £1,225.

They're both cracking upgrades and it's hard to imagine ordering either car without them given they don't invalidate the manufacturer's warranty.

But for me the Fiesta was the funnier by far. And that's what a tuning should be about.

 

[DoctorX]

Well that Fiesta upgrade seems a no-brainer for that price. Very nice indeed.