The Ford Fiesta ST Now Has More Torque, A Fresh Face And Green Paint

It’s mid-life facelift time for Ford‘s ever-popular Fiesta, and yes, that includes the darling of the hot hatch world - the ST.

In line with the rest of the range, it’s gained a new bonnet design that bumps the nose height up a little, and just below is a refreshed bumper packing a bigger grille. Proudly placed the latter is Ford’s Blue Oval badge, relocated from the lip of the bonnet. This makes for “greater road presence,” apparently.

The matrix LED headlamps are new too, and just to make sure the new-ish ST stands out even more from the old one, there’s a new colour the rest of the cars in the range miss out on. This being Ford, it has a suitably silly name - ‘Mean Green’. See also the old Focus ST’s ‘Tangerine Scream’.

Under the tweaked, potentially Hulk-coloured bonnet is the same 1.5-litre inline-three turbo engine as before, still developing 197bhp. Torque has been bumped slightly, however, with the peak figure rising from 214lb ft to 236. 0-62mph takes 6.5 seconds, and the top speed is 143mph. There’s also a new Track mode which disables the electronic stability control.

Inside, the old Recaro seats are gone, replaced with in-house developed chairs. They feature integrated headrests, 14-way adjustment, and synthetic ‘Sensico’ trim with red contrast stitching.

There’s a new 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, plus a whole host of new safety features including ‘Local Hazard Information’, Wrong-Way Alert’, and ‘Rear Occupant Alert’.

At the less spicy end of the range, there’s a 1.0-litre inline-three producing 99bhp, and two mild-hybrid versions of the same unit which are good for 123bhp and 153bhp. The Vignale model has been ditched with the range - the designation now merely refers to an option pack on Titanium, ST-Line, and Active-trimmed cars.

The updated Fiesta range is on sale now starting at £16,620.