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Ford unveiled new sport-themed editions of its Fiesta, Focus, and Mondeo at the 2016 Goodwood Festival of Speed. Named ST-Line, the models feature styling additions designed to echo the look of the full-house ST hot hatchbacks but in cars with more modest performance and better fuel efficiency.
The models joined a range of performance vehicles from the Ford GT Le Mans race car to the new Fiesta ST200 hot hatch at Goodwood and Professional Engineering spoke to Graham Hoare, Ford’s director of global vehicle evaluation and verification. Hoare is responsible for Ford’s Test and development operations worldwide, delivering vehicle prototyping, validation and signoff for Ford’s Global Product Portfolio.
What’s different about the ST-Line that you have unveiled at Goodwood?
Our ST-Line model range delivers bold styling inspired by Ford Performance models, and offers a line-up of powerful and efficient EcoBoost petrol and TDCi diesel powertrains offering from 150 PS to 240 PS. The models feature sport suspension and body styling; unique alloy wheel designs; and sport seats, perforated leather steering wheel and alloy pedals for the interior.
What kind of buyer do you think the ST-Line will attract that is different from your original line-up and what was behind your choice to expand your performance offering?
The Fiesta ST-Line and Focus ST-Line have both been available to order since earlier this month and are designed for customers who aspire to the sporty image of the Ford Performance Fiesta ST and Focus ST hot-hatch models – but do not require the full performance delivered by optimised ST engines and chassis with sports technologies.
The range will enable even more customers to experience sporty style and driving dynamics including the RS, Fiesta ST200 and GT supercar.
Basically, the ST line is a product series intended to excite everyone about performance vehicles but not necessarily meaning that everyone has to make the extreme performance choice. It has the style and excitement of performance vehicles with performance engines but still engines that are feel efficient and practical every day products.
This year we expect to sell 40,000 performance cars in Europe, a 50% increase compared with 2015, which in turn saw performance car sales rise by 61% compared with 2014.
Did you meet any engineering challenges while trying to collaborate performance and efficiency?
Our performance vehicles vehicles use a combination of state of the art diesel engines with emissions and fuel economy in mind but also have high performance eco boost engines. We think it’s very important for the line-up to have a perfect balance and the Ecoboost engines allows us to meet these objectives.
Combining performance with efficiency will always provide challenges within the engineering process. Meeting both of these requirements is challenging but with technology like Ecoboost we are able to offer the best of both worlds so that the vehicles feel dynamic and sporty on the road and particularly on the track but are at the same time drivable and comfortable for customers who want something a bit different.