For those who viewed my first post would have known that I have been looking at getting myself a new car, I had two cars in mind, the Fiesta ST and the Focus ST. These two cars were not the only ones that were in my interest, in fact I was considering a Polo GTI, Golf GTI, Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ, Toyota Aurion and even the WRX, in the end my two choices were the Focus and Fiesta ST as they were the most appealing and more fun to drive.
When the Fiesta St is pitted up against it's older brother the Focus ST, people generally lock onto the Focus ST straight away assuming they can afford it, I was one of those people as the Fiesta ST in Australia is only the 3 door version, so the Focus was more appealing with its 5 doors, more powerful engine and the slightly bigger cabin space. I was all for the Focus ST before I test drove it despite it costing more than the Fiesta, yes the Focus is slightly bigger, yes it has 5 doors for the convenience of picking people up, and yes the 184 Kw and 340 Nm engine figures are A LOT more appealing to anyone looking at buying a sport car, that's the point, a sport car. The Focus may look better on paper but in fact it did not feel as sporty or as fun as the Fiesta ST, the focus was very cruisy, even with the papers claiming to have peak torque from 2000 RPM, but it really doesn't kick in til 3000 RPM, however for the Fiesta you can feel it from 2000 RPM and have it kick hard at 2500 RPM onwards. The Focus was very comfortable, almost to the point that I had forgotten I was even sitting in Sport Recaro seats.
The Fiesta ST may seem a lot smaller than the Focus ST but it's only by a small fraction, the Fiesta ST gets max torque much quicker and pulls harder than the Focus, this may be due to the weight advantage it has over the Focus. Everything in the Fiesta ST feels more sporty than the Focus, with it feeling faster as mentioned above, the seats in the Fiesta and Focus both hug you nice and tight except for the Focus feeling very comfortable and cruise like with the torque coming in at a later RPM, the brakes in the Fiesta St are almost instant barely any brake fade, but in the Focus the brake fade was too much for my liking as I like to know that my car can stop as soon as I step on it especially with the 184 Kw figure.
Overall both cars are great, both are exceptionally fast and fun cars to own and drive, if you are like me who wants to buy a car for the pure joy factor and doesn't carry much people in the car then go for the Fiesta ST, but if you want something a bit more mature, with a bit more space and need to take people around, then go for the Focus ST, however in Australia our cars are always expensive so you are looking at paying nearly $15,000 on top of the Fiesta ST to own a Focus ST, but if you are in the market for used then you can find them easily for a few grand more than a new Fiesta ST.
I hope this can help anyone that may be considering a Fiesta or Focus ST.
Please comment and share
Anthony Liang
