Best sub-$40k hot hatch? 2021 Ford Fiesta ST detailed expert review 4K

G'day, I'm Paul and I want to talk about how much I love a fist. No, no, no, that sounds really bad. I want to talk about how much I love the fist. No, that also sounds bad. I want to talk about how much I love this fist. I'll explain why it's called a fist. So the Ford Fiesta ST is more affectionately known as the fist, and this has finally arrived in Australia. It was released in Europe in 2018, and because Australia and everything is so far behind, it's only just landed here because we were waiting for safety tech and that kind of stuff. Price has gone up over the previous one. It's now $32,000 just under. So it is a lot more expensive, but it is a whole lot more car. And today I want to see whether it is actually worth the money. Now you can skip ahead in this video if you want by using the time codes up there, or if you are on YouTube, scroll down and you'll see links that you can jump ahead to other parts of the video. And please don't forget to hit the subscribe button and the bell icon as well so you can stay on top of everything that we're driving. Let's talk styling. How good does this look? I am in love with the design. Hot hatch needs to look hot, and I reckon they've absolutely nailed it with the Fiesta ST. In terms of dimensions, it's about the same as the last one. So there's no big changes here. Check out those wheels though. These are fantastic. 18-inch alloy wheels. I love the way that it's like a shaved face. It's almost like they've got this big alloy wheel and just run a blade through it and then installed it on the car. They will be diabolical against kerbs. So please be very careful. You do have a little bit of lip there with the Michelin Pilot Sport. So 18-inch alloy wheels, Michelin Pilot Sport tyres. It is a really good package. The brakes are the same as the outgoing ones, and they've now been painted red. But effectively, they're the same size and do the same thing as the last Fiesta ST. Look at this. You're going to know you're coming up against a Fiesta ST if it's approaching you because this LED beam here, the daytime running light, looks sensational. It's like a big square, and you can see it coming from a mile away. LED headlights as well. I love this colour offset too. So you can get the Fiesta ST in a number of colours. I love the blue that it's offered in. But have a look at this shadow chrome sort of plastic grille. It offsets with that colour beautifully. So it really gives this an aggressive look at the front end and kind of splits up all the red or all the different colour that you're choosing. And have a look at this intercooler exposed down the bottom there. That is some serious stuff and reminds you that this is a very, very potent car. Let's have a look at the back. I actually really like the LED lighting design at the back. By the way, five door only for Australia. We won't be getting the three door, which is Europe. Also made in Germany. Dual exhaust pipes there. LED lights tucked into there. So this again will make this car stand out as you're following it. A little bit of a boot lip spoiler built into there. Antenna as well. It is a sensational looking car. And I'm keen to see what you think compared to the last Fiesta ST. Let me know in the comments below whether you think this is as good looking. Is it worse looking? And which colour would you get it in? I'm really liking this red. Before we get to interior styling, I thought the door was broken. Every time I closed it, I could hear something loose inside the door. And I thought, oh, this isn't good news. It's already not working. But it's actually a really clever feature. It was first introduced, I believe, on the Ford Focus years and years ago. But then it was popularised by Skoda with the Kodiaq. When you close the door, there's a little rod that pushes a protector on the edge of the door. So that means if you have anyone like my wife who rushes out of a car whenever it's near a wall, they're not going to whack the door into the wall. That is an absolutely awesome feature and it exists on both the front and rear doors. So keep an eye out for that. Now, I want to quickly reply to an Instagram question here from Zoomat. Is it an improvement over the previous version? So that is a good question. I'm going to say yes, it is. And mainly because of that. That's Ford's SYNC 3 infotainment system. Everything is far more premium here. You've got a cracking Bang & Olufsen sound system as well. So it is a big step forward and it justifies the extra price as well. Let's chat about the styling here. This is sensational. This is a massive, massive step forward from where it was. And yes, it is a $4,000 or $5,000 price increase in Australia. But it is justified. The old one, if you remember, had the screen at the top. And it was very much a base model Fiesta, just tarted up a little bit. This, on the other hand, is great. You've got these awesome looking Recaro seats. Ford's SYNC 3 infotainment system. That is super high res. We'll go into a bit more detail in that in just a second. So it presents beautifully. But the question is, how soft is that dashboard? We've got our hardness tester here. Measures from 0 to 100. 0 being softest and 100 being hardest. I'm going to crack that thing open. There is a bit of springiness to that dashboard. So let's see how that goes. Hey, that's not bad. 65 on the hardness scale. That's pretty good. And the armrest, oh, 27. That is pretty impressive. So this is no longer the cheap and nasty version of the small hot hatch range. This is really nicely presented with a fantastic steering wheel as well. It just makes you want to get in and drive it. Let's chat infotainment. I don't know about you guys, but I'm a massive tech nerd. I love high tech stuff. And if I'm buying a car, it needs to have a good infotainment system. That's part of the reason I bought the Supra. Because it uses BMW's infotainment system and not Toyota's. And why I bought the Tesla, because they are tech leaders. I reckon Ford is very close to the top there. They use a system called Sync. And we're currently at Sync 3, which is the latest. And it's just received a big software upgrade. So I want to walk you through the infotainment system, how it works, and some of the benefits of it. And this comes standard on the Fiesta ST and a number of new Ford products as well. This is the 8-inch screen. It is super high resolution. And the home screen looks like this. You've got shortcut buttons down the bottom. And then you have boxes to select things as you go. The other cool thing is down here, you also have shortcut buttons. But they're to critical functions that you'll often be fumbling for and don't want to spend time focusing on. So for example, this button here opens up your sound setting. So if you need more bass out of that B&O sound system, you can configure everything as you go. And this is my other favourite button. One push of that puts it into calm mode. Calm mode is just a clock and the date plus your mobile reception. Another push of that will kill the screen altogether. And that means it's handy if you're at the drive-in movies or something like that. A lot of manufacturers don't have screens that work for drive-in movies. They just keep coming back on, which is really frustrating. And let me know in the comments below whether a good infotainment system is actually something that you desperately desire in your next new car. Let's go through the menus here. So audio menu is where you're going to find AM, FM and DAB plus digital radio. You can save all your stations down here. Then you can access the rest of the stations on the DAB bands through the stations button. But there's something I really don't like here. They're broken up into ensembles. Now that is basically layman's terms effectively for the different bands of DAB radio. To get to other stations, you need to flick through the ensembles to find them. So that can be really distracting while you're driving. And it's something that I think they really need to fix. Just have them all on the one screen or divide them up a little smarter. I don't know. But aside from that, everything else is very straightforward. You set your favourites down the bottom. You can set a whole stack of them down there as well. There's no real limit to how much configuration you can do there. If we jump over to phone, this is also what I like with this system. You can instantly access features like do not disturb. So if I don't want to be disturbed while I'm driving or there's something sort of I need to concentrate on, one push of that means no phone calls or messages come through this screen. I can also have text messages displayed on the screen. And I have instant access to Siri, which is over Bluetooth. So you don't even need to have the phone paired with a cable through Apple CarPlay or the Android Auto system to get access to your phone's voice recognition. It's also backed up by a voice recognition system on the car itself. So this is a really clever setup. I love the way they've got that configured. Navigation. This is yet another example of how a high-res screen displays maps effectively. They're all super easy to read. You've got traffic built into there as well. Accessing addresses is very straightforward. You can also change the way the screen is displayed in terms of what's split, whether you see the map or your navigation items, etc. Another really handy feature, if you're ever involved in an accident or rather if you ever turn up to an accident or need to direct emergency services anywhere, you can instantly click Where Am I? And using GPS coordinates, you can tell emergency services exactly where you are. So this is a very handy feature. And hopefully you never have to use it, but you know that it is there. You can search through points of interest, favourites, set a home and a work address as well. So it's a very clever system and very easy to use. If you do need to type an address in manually, it's simply a case of using the keyboard on the screen or works very quickly as well. Let's jump over to the next menu, which is mobile apps. You can download apps onto your phone that are sync compatible. I kind of don't really bother with any of that stuff because the system itself is great. And then if you do need any extra functionality, you simply pair your phone with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto and that will simply give you that extended functionality of your phone. Over on the settings menu is where you're going to find the rest of the settings for the car. These are all pretty straightforward. The sound menu, which you access through a button as well. Settings for your digital radio navigation, whether it uses toll roads or not. The mobile apps that you can download. But there's something really clever here. Two clever things actually. Emergency assistance. If the car's ever involved in a serious accident, it will automatically dial emergency services so that they can send assistance if required. So that's if the car rolls over, if airbags are deployed, it will start dialing that virtually immediately so that you will get help as quick as possible. So that is a fantastic feature. You've also got valet mode. So if you ever drop your car off to the hotel, you need to leave it with the valet and you don't want them going through your saucy text messages or perhaps your contacts or your navigation addresses, you simply set a valet mode and all they'll be able to do is just see a screen. They won't really have any access to all your personal details. Wi-Fi. That's another great function as well. All the updates for the car are supplied over Wi-Fi. So when you park it in the garage at home, you can connect to your Wi-Fi network. Whenever it's parked there, it'll look for updates and make sure the system is always fully functioning. Let me know in the comments below whether you have any questions about Ford's SYNC 3 infotainment system. Anyway, let's talk about what you're getting in this car. And you're getting quite a lot for such a pint-sized car. The Ford PR guy told me this and I thought it was a little bit funny and I'll share it with you. It's Rally Sweden ready because you get a heated steering wheel, you get a heated windscreen. Now, it's going to be a little tricky to see but Eagle's going to show you an overlay here. Inside the windscreen, there are tiny little heating elements so that if you do decide to drive this through Rally Sweden, your windscreen will never be covered in ice. Heated seats as well. So these are all features you'd never expect on a car like this. In terms of the other equipment that you're getting, you've got a cracking Bang & Olufsen sound system, 10 speakers. It is really impressive for such a small cabin. It's very immersive and you're hearing everything which is cool. Down here, you have single zone automatic climate control. That works really well. It's all very straightforward to use. And guess what? There are no blank buttons here which means you are getting every single feature they could possibly think of. If you go down here, there is an interesting little point here and I'm going to reply to one of the questions that I got on Instagram. It is from dpi12c. I love some of these usernames. The question is, is this going to be an automatic option? Well, unfortunately not. This is going to be manual only. Or fortunately, I think this is a far more pure system which means you get three pedals. Ford isn't working on an automatic version so it is going to be manual only. In terms of safety equipment, this car is really well equipped. Up here, you've got autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection. That is low and high speed so that is a very well equipped system. Rear cross traffic alert, rear parking sensors and then ahead of the driver here, you also have a little screen that has the trip computer and all the assistance functions plus activation for launch control which I'm going to show you later on. We'll see if that actually works well. On the steering wheel, you have all the buttons for your cruise control and also for the audio functions plus flicking through that menu ahead of the driver. You're also getting keyless entry and push button start. That's what the key looks like. Cool little ST badge on the back there. So that just sits in your pocket. You jump in and then the engine start button that pulsates at you waiting for you to hit it. I love the fact that the pedals have these alloy covers on them plus the brake and the clutch also have grip tabs on them. So if you do want to do a bit of heel towing, you're never going to have your foot slip off the brake as you're slowing down for a corner if it's been wet. This thing is loaded with features so I think you're going to be very impressed in terms of the standard equipment. There's really only one option which is the sunroof or the paint. Let's talk practicality and comfort. Yep, this is a really, really comfortable cabin. These seats are absolutely amazing. I remember the second generation Ford Focus RS had these seats that had such a hard bolster on the side that whenever you got in, it gave you a prod on the bottom that was really uncomfortable. These bolsters here are really soft so that means that you can get in and if you are a little bit bigger, you're not going to be assaulted by them each time you try and get in. Steering wheel, I mentioned a little bit before but I'm going to go into a bit more detail here. It's the perfect size. When you grab it, it fills your entire hand. It feels like a BMW M wheel so it's got a lot of substance to it. You've got the little ST badging down there. The driving position itself is really good. You don't sit really high like the old Fiesta ST used to. You know, you kind of felt like you were driving a bus. This is much lower and the driving position feels much better. The shifter itself is a short throw. It's not super tight but it's short enough and easy to locate the gears which is excellent. So from that point of view, everything here is pretty straightforward. Storage for your phone. You've got a little pocket down there. Only just fits my phone. It kind of bulges out of there. You'll also find one USB port up the front and then one in the center console as well. Two cup holders and I love the blue lighting down the bottom. That kind of makes it all stand out nicely and it makes it easier to stick your bottle in. There's also a door pocket for the bottle as well. You've then got this center console which is tiny but to be expected for a car like this and then the glove box is massive so you can go dump whatever you need in there and there's a separate hidey hole for your manual which means it's not eating away in space. It's not exactly cavernous back here. We're in the back seat of the Fiesta ST and this is my normal driving position. As you can see, my knees are very much dug into there and I don't have any toe room at all. I understand that most of the people that buy this car won't care about the people in the back seat and it is $5 now instead of $3 so you can actually carry people if you need to. It's kind of like a 911 where there are seats there but you never want to use them. So in that respect, it is fine. What about the rest of it though? You get matte pockets in the back of each seat. The seats are beautifully textured as well. Have a look at this. It's like an Alcantara suede type arrangement. You've got ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats. No center armrest and these things kind of dig into you but you can lift them up if you need to. That's the headrest. You have a light here. No grab handles though and then you have a door pocket for your drink but getting to it requires you to sort of gymnastic your way out of there. So yeah, look, it is a pretty tight space but it is to be expected. There's also this storage pocket hole type thing down here. So will it fit some phones? Here's my phone, the Max. Sort of doesn't really fit. I'll use Eagle's phone, the little one. Hey, that sort of fits a little bit. There you go. So it's like a mobile phone holder thing. Let's talk cargo space. I've just noticed these winglets. They look really cool. So these are attached to the side of the boot lid and this improves the air buffeting as it comes over the side of the car. You can even see that on the spoiler that I mentioned earlier. It's got like a little kink on it which is pretty awesome. So in the boot here, 311 litres of cargo space. It's up 35 litres over the previous generation Fiesta ST. So that is a step in the right direction. In terms of things and little features you've got in here, I love these Velcro straps and I reckon you could possibly fit a fire extinguisher into there. Then you've got hooks on the side there as well to hold bags and shopping and that kind of thing. Under the cargo floor, you have a space saver spare tyre. Is it going to fit our luggage though? Let's give this a shot. Gee, it's a bit of a high boot lip there. No, it's not. So it kind of fits it up like that. I'm curious to see if that actually closes. Laptop bag in the side. That fits nicely. All right, will it close? Oh, look at that. That fits perfectly. But what if you have something bigger? I'm going to show you what you can do here. Get rid of this parcel shelf without breaking it, preferably. And at the same time, drop these seats. That parcel shelf then goes out of the way. You can even throw it up there if you want. That thing gives you more room for the luggage and you can actually just start loading whatever you want in there. So it is a pretty versatile space. It's kind of like a really fast minivan. Alrighty, before we go for a drive, I want to go through a bit of nerd talk about the suspension and why it's unique in this car compared to other cars in the segment. Up the front, there's a McPherson strut, which is fairly straightforward. But in addition to that, there's a 22.5 mil anti-roll bar and then a Teneco twin tube damper. It's an RC1 type. And the difference there is they've been able to tune it for low and high frequency. So you get some of the benefits of an adaptively damped suspension system without all the control hardware and cabling that comes associated with such a system. Then at the back of the car, there's a torsion beam or also known as a twist beam, depending on where you are in the world at the moment. And then in addition to that, instead of using a Watts linkage, they've gone with a tow correcting bush and force vectoring springs along with a monotube Teneco damper. So the advantage of this system is better lateral load without the need for an anti-roll bar. It also means that you don't get the effects of liftoff oversteer anywhere near as much with that kind of setup. So it gives the car an overall better feel without having all of that control hardware that you'd need for an adaptive damping suspension setup. This is the moment I've been waiting for. We're behind the wheel of the Fiesta ST now. First impressions, the suspension feels thick. And I don't mean thick as in, you know, the literal term. I mean, thick as in gangster thick. It's kind of got some bulkiness to it, but it's not overly firm. The Ford Focus RS, when you put that into sport mode, it literally dislocates your back. This is, I don't know, it's sporty, but on the comfortable side of sporty. So you still feel everything, but it's not back jarring. And that is thanks to those dampers that I mentioned earlier. What about the noise? The noise is an interesting thing. We've actually got a question from Ashan. Does the three-cylinder lose character compared to the four-cylinder? The answer is no, because it has a unique sound. Have a listen to this. Every three-cylinder has that gnarly, gnarly note to it, and this is no different. It feels completely different to the four-banger. So under the bonnet now, instead of the old four-cylinder, is a three-cylinder turbocharged petrol, 147 kilowatts of power, 290 newton metres of torque. Now that's an important number because this car doesn't weigh much, 1262 kilos. So having a car that pumps out 290 newton metres of torque, weighing just that much, means it is really, really characterful. So let me show you what I mean. We've got ourselves a nice set of corners here. Second gear. Oh man, the steering is so direct. This is fantastic. So just quickly as well, you've got three driving modes to choose from. You have normal, which is just normal driving. Sport, which adds a little bit of cracking and popping to the exhaust. And then you have racetrack, which limits stability control and makes this even more raucous and fun-inducing. But there's also a launch control mode, which I'll show you in a second, and that helps you get off the line in a hurry. This is where things get a little bit more fun, and this is where that 290 newton metres of torque really works because it weighs barely anything. It means you can really throw it around and have some fun with it. It has a Quaife mechanical LSD, and that is unheard of in a car this size. And it doubles with torque vectoring on the front wheels to give you just insane amounts of grip and traction. It is so damn impressive. And as the speed picks up, that suspension is working absolutely perfectly with the rest of the body. Holy crap, this thing is fast. Oh man, this thing is so much fun. I mentioned earlier that you've got plenty of space in that pedal box as well. So you can really have some fun there with the gears and heel towing too. The brakes are really nice and responsive. So despite the fact they are the same as the outgoing brakes, they still provide plenty of bite and assurance. This engine is so responsive, you will never think of a three-cylinder the same way again. OK, did you know this has the fastest steering rack of any Ford performance product? So that is pretty impressive when you consider the size of this. That's important because the wheels at the front are doing all the hard work. They're doing the driving, they're doing the steering. So the steering needs to be absolutely precise. I love the weight through the wheel. It feels really confident all the time and I know exactly what it's doing. It is a really, really impressive setup. This whole package is working so beautifully in concert. Everything just works really nicely together. Oh, that heel towing is easy. Oh, right out there to red line. Second gear is where it's at in this car and this LSD is giving it so much traction. This is so bloody cool. OK, question from shifty42 on Instagram. Does the exhaust crackle and pop? Yes, have a listen to this. We'll go back to second here. You can hear it just firing out the exhaust. So bloody cool. Let's expand a little bit in the exhaust sound. Most of it's real. So it's got a bimodal exhaust and it does the cracks and the pops. That's all fine. But there's a little bit of fakery in the cabin here. So there is plumbed exhaust note from the engine and that is that raspy three-cylinder noise that you get. It's not all real, which is a shame, but it gives you a bit more character inside the cabin and when you do want to go for a squirt, it makes it sound like it's going a whole lot faster than it is. When you are done having a blast through the hills, the car is interesting. So it's comfortable enough. It is still pretty firm and that's just something you're going to have to live with because there isn't too much adjustability in those dampers there. But it is worth keeping in mind that it is quiet enough. The Michelin Pilot Sport tyres are a little bit noisy on course chip roads, but it's quiet enough and you'll get used to the firmness. It's one of those things, if you go from a soft and supple car to something firm, it feels really firm. But if this is your only car or your daily and you could easily live with this as a daily, it's very straightforward and easy to drive. Visibility is excellent out the cabin. So front, I can see everything. Out the sides, the wing mirrors are big enough. I've got blind spot monitoring and all that kind of equipment. At the back, plenty of visibility there too. So as a package, this is a car you can drive to and from work and then to the racetrack on the weekend. So Ford claims zero to 100 kilometres an hour in six and a half seconds for the fist. I want to see how close we can get to that. Keep in mind as well that from second to third, that happens at 90 kilometres an hour. So the car actually feels much quicker than a six and a half second car because you've got that extra gear shift. So I'm in sport mode. We've got our brand new V-Box there as well. So we'll see how this goes. A little bit of wheel slip. It's third. Okay, so how are we looking? That is zero to 100 in 7.2 seconds. So it's about half a second off what Ford claims. I didn't want to be too hard on it in terms of the gear shift. So we'll try one more now with launch control and see if we can get any quicker. Okay, so here we go. Foot flat on the throttle in first. It's holding revs at 3,000. Feels really cool. And then sidestep. That was harsh. Okay, second. And then grabbing third and there's 100. That was a really harsh launch. See if that was any quicker. Okay, that was zero to 100 in seven seconds, dead flat. So still half a second off, but much closer. And man, this thing just feels so quick. If it wasn't for that two to three shift, I reckon this would be a much quicker car on paper. Okay, you're kind of waiting for the negatives now, right? I've got a bit of a problem. There aren't any negatives really that I can think of. This car is absolutely sensational. I can't get enough of it. I can't get the smile off my face. It sounds good. It looks really nice and masculine. The last Fiesta kind of looked a little bit funny. This one is head and shoulders above it. I love the wheels. I love the Ford Performance treatment. And it feels like it has a harder edge than the rest of the competitors. Suzuki Swift Sport, Polo GTI, they're both a little soft compared to this. This really just takes it to another level. And it's a smile-inducing car. So if you want a hot hatch that you can live with daily, this is the one you want to go for. It is slightly harder than something like a Polo GTI for day-to-day living. But outside of that, it ticks all the right boxes in terms of features and performance. So yeah, it's got me sold. In fact, I think I might buy one. I don't know. I've got to convince the wife first. If you enjoyed this video, despite it not having very many negatives, I'd love if you could hit the like button. Also, subscribe and press the bell icon as well. That'll tell you every single time we publish a new video. Also, while you're at it, in the comments below, did you buy one of these? I know it's only just landed in Australia, but it's been out a little while now in Europe. I'm keen to see what you think of it as a long-term prospect and what it is like to live with day-to-day. And if you ordered one in Australia, what colour did you go for? I'm keen to see what everyone is kind of picking there. You can read the full review at carexpert.com.au. And until next time, take it easy. Kill that mozzie just on your door. You want to kill it though, so it doesn't start sucking your blood and transmitting Zika to your arse. A disgusting mosquito trying to eat us alive here.