2015 Ford Fiesta ST Road Test & Review

by Lyndon Bell

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September 16, 2014

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7 min. Reading Time

2015 ford fiesta st

A direct descendant of the first Ford Fiesta model we saw here in the United States back in the late 1970’s, the Fiesta was reintroduced to this marketplace in 2010, after having been discontinued here in 1980. Ford’s first front drive model, the delightful Fiesta, as its name implies, has been a party on wheels since the very beginning.

For the current iteration of the front-drive subcompact, Ford’s American SVT group and its European counterpart the Ford RS division have added considerable heat to an already pretty hot party. Remarkably affordable at its price point, as well as handsome to look at, fun to drive, and very nicely finished, the Ford Fiesta ST is easily one of the more desirable cars in its competitive set, which includes the Mini Cooper S and the Chevrolet Sonic RS.

Universally agreed upon by the automotive cognoscenti to be one of the best performance car bargains on the market, the Ford Fiesta ST is a performance car you can enjoy without exploiting triple digit speeds. Like the Miata, the Fiesta ST’s personality makes every drive seem like a flying lap at the Nurburgring—even if you’re only doing 65 on the Interstate. Ford’s performance divisions really came up with something when they laid hands on Ford’s Fiesta.

Models & Pricing

Fiesta ST, as you likely have already figured out, is a trim level within the overall Ford Fiesta lineup. This also includes Fiesta S, SE, and Titanium. While each of the other three trim lines can be had as either a four-door sedan or a five-door hatchback, Fiesta ST is offered only with the hatch.

Fiesta ST’s standard equipment includes power actuated door locks and exterior rearview mirrors, keyless entry and pushbutton start, power windows, cruise control, a more aggressive bodywork treatment, and foglamps. The model also gets a set of dual exhaust tips, a six-speed manual transmission, a sport-tuned suspension system, a slightly lowered ride height, 17-inch wheels with low profile summer performance tires, a quicker steering system, and an upgraded braking system with four discs.

Comfort and convenience kit includes an automatic climate control system, a leather-wrapped shift knob, Ford’s Sync telematics interface, a pretty nice Sony sound system supporting Bluetooth telephone connectivity and audio streaming, in addition to satellite radio, HD radio, and an iPod interface along with an auxiliary audio input port.

Base Fiesta ST models get deeply bolstered ST-specific cloth sport seats for the driver and front passenger, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel along with an aluminum-trimmed pedal set, ST-specific floor mats and doorsill plates.

For even more support from the seats, Ford’s product team specified an optional ST Recaro package, which adds heated Recaro seats and heated exterior rearview mirrors. Also optional is partial leather trim for the Recaros, and navigation.

For the 2015 model year, Fiesta ST pricing starts at $20,915.

Design

The Fiesta is already a good-looking car; so the ST enhancements only serve to make it more so. These include a unique blacked out mesh grille, a more aggressively sculpted chin spoiler, side skirts, a high-mounted rear spoiler, dual chrome-tipped exhaust outlets, a specific rear lower valance treatment, 17-inch alloy wheels wearing low profile tires,

And, in the case of our test car, Fiesta ST gets a day-glo paint job. Rendered in what Ford dubbed Green Envy paint, (basically, neon green), our Fiesta ST looks like an angry Easter egg.

Ford recently went to a new grille treatment, one seemingly lifted wholesale from the styling department at Aston Martin. On the Fiesta ST it looks quite wonderful. Adding a touch of class to the overall appearance of the car, the grille is one of the reasons the Ford Fiesta ST looks more expensive than it turns out to be.

Features & Controls

nside, the racy theme continues unabated. A generous allocation of metallic accents adds a nice ambiance to the sharply drawn interior treatment. Looking around, it’s pretty evident Ford is aiming this car at a younger buyer, as the emphasis on the tech quotient is rather heavily applied.

The instrumentation is straightforward, readily decipherable, and also styled in a manner pleasing to the eye. Naturally Ford’s Sync system is in the house, offering voice control over many of the secondary controls including the phone, climate system, and navigation destination inputs.

The radio controls can be slightly off-putting at first glance, but become second nature once the brief acclimation process is completed. However, we do feel it’d be nice if Ford gave users a dial to employ to tune the radios rather than making you hold a button, or punching in the desired frequency on the touchscreen, after calling up the interface to do so.

Overall though, the cockpit is well laid out, most controls fall readily to hand, and everything is where you’d expect it to be more or less. That said, we’d prefer to see the door lock button on the doors rather than the center console—or at least on the doors as well as on the center console.

Comfort & Cargo

Our test Fiesta ST had the optional Recaro package, and as most die-hard performance enthusiasts will tell you, very few companies build a more comfortably supportive automotive seat than Recaro. However, Recaro seats are not for every body. Only the trim of figure will find true comfort within the deeply sculpted, heavily bolstered confines of these racing inspired thrones.

Further, we wonder about the long-term durability of those bolsters. Sliding over them to enter and exit the Fiesta ST will undoubtedly impose significant wear over an extended period of ownership. In the meantime though, they are exceptionally competent partners in crime when it comes to enjoying the performance potential of the little Ford.

The fabric upholstering the seats is remarkably grippy, there’s no sliding about in these chairs. Further, all of that performs as advertised; containing you quite securely during the daring maneuvers the Fiesta ST is capable of performing.

The overall driving position is good, there’s plenty of legroom for the folks sitting up front, and if they’re willing to be generous, the people riding in the back seat will do alright for a bit. Cargo capacity suffers somewhat because the rear seat doesn’t fold completely flat; max capacity is 26 cubic feet.

Safety Equipment and Crash Test Ratings

The safety suite is comprised of antilock brakes, traction and stability control, hill start assist, electronic brakeforce distribution, a pair of parabolic inserts for the exterior rearview mirrors to cover the blind spots, a pair of front side airbags, a pair of side curtain airbags and a driver’s knee airbag.

The Sync system offers 911 Assist, which uses your paired cell phone to summon emergency assistance in the event of an airbag-deploying crash. Purchasing a Fiesta ST also gets you a complimentary day of performance driving instruction from the ST Octane Academy at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah. The deal covers tuition, you’re responsible for getting yourself to and from the Academy, as well as lodging.

When NHTSA slammed the Fiesta into various and sundry stationary objects at speed to determine its crashworthiness, the little car earned four of five stars for overall protection; scoring four stars in frontal impacts and two stars for side protection. (You might want to look twice before entering intersections to make very sure nobody’s running the light—hey, we’re just saying…)

The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) rated the Fiesta “good” (its highest rating) in moderate-overlap frontal-offset, side-impact, and roof-strength tests.

Engine & Fuel Economy

Powering the front-wheel drive Fiesta ST to brilliant effect is Ford’s highly robust 197-horsepower, 1.6-liter turbocharged ”EcoBoost” inline four-cylinder engine, capable of developing 202 ft-lbs of torque. Configured to develop max horsepower for approximately 15 seconds in “overboost’ mode, this helps the engine set things in motion with quite a bit of verve.

The engine is calibrated to deliver 177 of its 202 ft-lbs of torque at 1600 rpm—pretty much right at throttle tip-in. What’s more you’ll get the entire 202 ft-lbs at 3,500 rpm.

Fuel economy with this engine and the six-speed manual transmission with which it is teamed (the only configuration offered BTW) is 26 mpg in the city, 35 on the highway, and 29 combined.

Driving Impressions

One of the things we mentioned before we really like about the Fiesta ST is the way it makes you feel like you’re doing amazing things, without going all supersonic to get a visceral response the way you must in say a Nissan GT-R. You can have all sorts of fun in the Fiesta ST at regular speeds.

And honestly, this really should be listed as one of the car’s safety features. After all, if you can have a good time at 50 miles per hour, if something goes wrong, you won’t leave behind a debris field rivaling that of Asiana 214 at the San Francisco airport as you would in a supercar mishap at 150 miles per hour.

Quick steering, with tons of grip, the little Ford Fiesta ST handles delightfully. To get there, the engineering team fitted a modified front knuckle to deliver a steering ratio of 13.6:1. The rear axle got increased roll stiffness to improve stability through fast corners, while the Fiesta ST’s ride height is 15 millimeters closer to the ground than the base model Fiesta.

To reduce understeer, electronic Torque Vectoring Control funnels thrust to the outside wheel in a corner to improve turn-in. Meanwhile, the ST’s three-mode electronic stability control (standard, sport, or off) offers more control over the electronic safety net, allowing the driver to more freely explore the performance potential of the chassis setup.

Another thing you’ll really appreciate about the Fiesta ST is the way it sounds. And, so will the pedestrians you pass out on the street. Incorporating a mechanical version of the sound symposer we first encountered on the Focus ST, the Fiesta ST projects an enhanced soundtrack to amplify the visceral experience of driving the car by directly feeding the engine sound into the passenger cabin. You’ll get a pleasantly audible growly sound inside the car without blasting the people on the sidewalk with an obnoxiously loud engine note.

Final Thoughts

Another thing we really appreciate about the scrappy Fiesta ST is the way it delivers delightfully entertaining handling without subjecting its passengers to an overly stiff and harsh ride quality. This is a car proves you don’t have to have an incompliant ride to corner well. Comfortably supple in every situation—save over speed bumps (and this is more a function of the car’s short wheelbase than its suspension tuning) the Fiesta ST is a remarkably comfortably little performance car.

Which brings us to another of the car’s virtues. We’re talking a credible performance car, which delivers sound fuel economy, a comfortable ride, an abundance of creature comforts, a broad array of personal technology (it’ll even read your text messages to you—with a compatible smartphone), and handsome styling both inside and out, priced in the $20,000 range.

The engine is smooth, likes to rev, and delivers good power output throughout its rev range. In fact, we found ourselves continually bumping up against the rev limiter because the little powerplant winds so freely. There’s only minimal turbo lag, and once you get the little engine cooking it delivers for you big time. Granted, it does its best work in second and third gears, but that’s where you’re living on the twisty roads this Fiesta loves to party on anyway.

Long story short, if you genuinely love to drive, you really ought to give the Fiesta ST a go before you settle on your next car.