Ford Fiesta ST Beats Toyota GT86 on the Track in EVO Test

[thill]

Originally Posted by Sport-Tech

Agreed on the first point - but guys on the ST forums that have driven both tend to find the new Fiesta ST a better handler and more fun to drive (it does weigh about 500 lb less). (No the FiST has not been released yet in NA but people are driving them on manufacturer track days.)

Interesting. I need to give one of these little Fiesta ST's a drive. I still have the stigma of these Fiesta's burned into my brain.. Which were just horrible little cars:

[dsmx17]

Originally Posted by DylanFRS

Thanks for the post. Very interesting video and definitely not a surprise. That ST looks pretty fun. Definitely looking at that or the Focus ST for my wives next car.

On a side note, that has got to be one of the only cars I have seen that will lift the inside rear wheel stock (and not from maxing the droop). Nice job to Ford on the setup.

Now for the:

"Yeah, but FWD..."
"FWD is for losers"
"But you gotta drive a ford"
"A real driver would be better in the Toyota"
etc
etc
etc...

Pimpin.

[DylanFRS]

Originally Posted by dsmx17

Pimpin.

Hahaha... that's right, and I make them share one car.

[Spaceywilly]

Originally Posted by Sport-Tech

Agreed on the first point - but guys on the ST forums that have driven both tend to find the new Fiesta ST a better handler and more fun to drive (it does weigh about 500 lb less). (No the FiST has not been released yet in NA but people are driving them on manufacturer track days.)

Yeah I have driven the Focus ST and it didn't impress me that much. I haven't driven the Fiesta ST (I signed up for the track day near me but I had other stuff going on that day) but I did drive a bunch of rally prepped Fiestas at Team O'Neils Rally School and they were a blast. It's really a fun car.

[WolfpackS2k]

Originally Posted by thill

Interesting. I need to give one of these little Fiesta ST's a drive. I still have the stigma of these Fiesta's burned into my brain.. Which were just horrible little cars:

Isn't that a Festiva?

[thill]

Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k

Isn't that a Festiva?

Yes. Google Image got confused. Here is a 1990 Fiesta:

[bedabi]

I was taking a close look at the Fiesta ST and was cross-shopping it with the BRZ I bought a couple of weeks ago. The Focus ST is heavier and with less power than my lightly modded 2004 WRX and I wanted something lighter and presumably more nimble, so the Fiesta ST really got my attention. With 4 doors and a hatch rear, it made a lot of practical sense. Plus, being in Buffalo I did have some concerns about having a RWD car for the winters here.

But the one thing I worried about is the fact that the Fiesta ST does not have an independent rear suspension - like the Veloster Turbo. My one joy on my commute is the occasional empty onramp. And many here have either expansion joints or medium sized bumps. I feared the Fiesta ST's rear would bounce around unpredictably on these bumps, marring that bit of indulgence. Otherwise, it certainly looks like a car with good mpg, practical rear seats and interior space, and a hoot to drive.

As an aside, it cracks me up when people say a "track" test like this is only fair when using stock tires. As if anyone who actually goes to the track only uses stock tires, or if enthusiastic street driving even comes close to reaching a car's limits like on a roadcourse... The actual comments by the driver in this video tell you a lot more than a ~1 sec difference in track time and can hardly be interpreted as favoring one car as significantly superior to the other.

[DylanFRS]

Originally Posted by bedabi

But the one thing I worried about is the fact that the Fiesta ST does not have an independent rear suspension -

Definitely. This is almost a bigger gripe to me than it being FWD.

[Spaceywilly]

Originally Posted by bedabi

I was taking a close look at the Fiesta ST and was cross-shopping it with the BRZ I bought a couple of weeks ago. The Focus ST is heavier and with less power than my lightly modded 2004 WRX and I wanted something lighter and presumably more nimble, so the Fiesta ST really got my attention. With 4 doors and a hatch rear, it made a lot of practical sense. Plus, being in Buffalo I did have some concerns about having a RWD car for the winters here.

But the one thing I worried about is the fact that the Fiesta ST does not have an independent rear suspension - like the Veloster Turbo. My one joy on my commute is the occasional empty onramp. And many here have either expansion joints or medium sized bumps. I feared the Fiesta ST's rear would bounce around unpredictably on these bumps, marring that bit of indulgence. Otherwise, it certainly looks like a car with good mpg, practical rear seats and interior space, and a hoot to drive.

As an aside, it cracks me up when people say a "track" test like this is only fair when using stock tires. As if anyone who actually goes to the track only uses stock tires, or if enthusiastic street driving even comes close to reaching a car's limits like on a roadcourse... The actual comments by the driver in this video tell you a lot more than a ~1 sec difference in track time and can hardly be interpreted as favoring one car as significantly superior to the other.

Yeah I agree with all this. This video is pretty useless. Nobody is going to decide to buy a Fiesta ST or FR-S based on the lap times of the stock cars. People who are looking for a fun car and don't care about practicality will get the FR-S. People who are looking for a fun hatchback will get the Fiesta ST. Both types of people will end up with a car that works for them. The greatest thing about this video is to see how people react to it. It becomes immediately obvious who the fanboys and who the haters are. Anyone with a brain realizes it is a useless comparison, it's basically trollbait meant to drum up some controversy and rake in the page views. It's not a groundbreaking and insightful comparison between two cars that someone might be cross shopping, it's just meant to stir the pot and bring out the same echo chamber comments that people have been saying since the car came out (the seagulls just won't die). The only useful new thing that this video brings to the party is, wow that Fiesta ST is an impressive car.

[thill]

Originally Posted by bedabi

I was taking a close look at the Fiesta ST and was cross-shopping it with the BRZ I bought a couple of weeks ago. The Focus ST is heavier and with less power than my lightly modded 2004 WRX and I wanted something lighter and presumably more nimble, so the Fiesta ST really got my attention. With 4 doors and a hatch rear, it made a lot of practical sense. Plus, being in Buffalo I did have some concerns about having a RWD car for the winters here.

But the one thing I worried about is the fact that the Fiesta ST does not have an independent rear suspension - like the Veloster Turbo. My one joy on my commute is the occasional empty onramp. And many here have either expansion joints or medium sized bumps. I feared the Fiesta ST's rear would bounce around unpredictably on these bumps, marring that bit of indulgence. Otherwise, it certainly looks like a car with good mpg, practical rear seats and interior space, and a hoot to drive.

As an aside, it cracks me up when people say a "track" test like this is only fair when using stock tires. As if anyone who actually goes to the track only uses stock tires, or if enthusiastic street driving even comes close to reaching a car's limits like on a roadcourse... The actual comments by the driver in this video tell you a lot more than a ~1 sec difference in track time and can hardly be interpreted as favoring one car as significantly superior to the other.

I just don't know how many people will cross shop a Fiesta and an FR-S/BRZ anyway. They are going to be at pretty different price points. With the typical Ford discounts and incentives you are most likely looking at a sub $20K car vs a $25-28K+ car. At that price point you are talking loaded Focus ST or Mustang V6 or even base model Mustang GT.

[bedabi]

Originally Posted by thill

I just don't know how many people will cross shop a Fiesta and an FR-S/BRZ anyway. They are going to be at pretty different price points. With the typical Ford discounts and incentives you are most likely looking at a sub $20K car vs a $25-28K+ car. At that price point you are talking loaded Focus ST or Mustang V6 or even base model Mustang GT.

There were pros and cons to each. I certainly gave up some considerable practicality getting the BRZ, especially with an 8 y.o. kid.

As for $, I didn't feel there would be that much difference. I got my BRZ premium for about $2k off MSRP, or around $23,500 (this was why I ultimately didn't wait for the release of the Fiesta ST). If I were to get a Fiesta, it would have been very soon after it hit the US market, because my wife would have spent my bonus $ any later than that . So I didn't expect anything less than MSRP, which is now stated to be $21,400. The option package prices aren't listed yet, but I figured it'd be similar to the Focus ST package prices. The ST3 trim with HID lights, Recaro seats and navigation is $4,435, or a total of $25,835 MSRP. These are just approximations, of course, but in my mind there wasn't much of a price difference.

[DoomsdayJesus]

Originally Posted by thill

I don't think the engineers ever intended for people to be tracking the car with these tires.

Well they did market it as having enough space for track tires with the rear seat dropped

Originally Posted by fatoni

what you seem to not know is that gravity, friction and inertia also happen to rwd cars. you also seem to lose sight of the fwd cars being able to put more power down to the tires and be lighter weight. cars like the itr and cobalt ss dont defy physics with nannies or extensively modified suspensions. those cars lap times are pertinent empirical evidence. the existence of gravity is not.

I had a ton of fun driving an FWD SRT-4 with buckets of HP/FT-LBS, sick 1/4mile and track times, but when I moved on to a RWD 330Ci and my BRZ (which is inarguably the slowest of the three) there was no comparison.

FWD these days is all about fuel economy and weight, performance models of FWD cars have a lot of fun with the concept, but there's no comparison in terms of the performance advantage of RWD or AWD over FWD when you're comparing similar vehicles. You can soup up a lawnmower and get awesome track times but it's still a lawnmower. There's a reason [insert exotic/muscle/pony car here] doesn't make an FWD. But FWD is great of putting more power (or fuel economy, which has largely started to trump performance with CAFE) in the hands of consumers with skinnier wallets. That's why I bought an SRT-4 for $21k in Germany and not an M3.

FWD is what it isn't. There are clear trade-offs. In this case, there's a reason why many more seasoned reviews rave about the twins being superb and balanced automobiles/driver's cars versus being fast cars., and why other reviews have a one-sided "speed is everything" narrative. Same has gone for the Miata and other roadsters before it. There's undeniably been a shift in performance car culture towards speed at the expense of balanced automobiles.

[Lonewolf]

This thread in one post:

Fiesta ST is better than the GT86...OMG

Tires on GT86 suck...no surprise

FWD still sucks...RWD rulez

GT86 looks better tho!

FWD can be close or equal to RWD when set up right

There is no big difference between FWD and RWD on the track or the street

But RWD is more fun and feels better!

I want a Fiesta (aka the "babyshoe")

[SubieNate]

I'm a believer in RWD if only for the classic driving dynamics/techniques it allows you to use.

FWD can be fast, but it is dynamically inferior. There are many things that can be done to negate that inferiority, but the fact remains that you have to do more with less (turn and go), and that as you accelerate the grip shifts to the non-drive wheels.

Now. That doesn't mean that with the particular limitations of a specific chassis fwd won't be faster (look at the Audi TT endurance racers that get converted to FWD because the weight reduction makes the car faster than the AWD system), or that you can't modify to seriously negate the disadvantages (Huge slicks in front, skinny rear tires ala tons of track Civics) but given a blank slate, ground up design made purely for speed, RWD or in some cases, AWD is going to be faster, or at least more consistently fast as it uses it's tires more effectively. You don't see FWD hypercars and you don't see FWD Formula 1 cars.

Whether that has much relevance to the current conversation is up for dabate. Given two platforms with all kinds of design compromises between them due to material, packaging, technological, and cost constraints and when it comes to pure speed or driving fun I'd guess the competency of the individual engineering teams is going to have a bigger part than layout choice.

I know that I personally love the feeling of driving a RWD car, and even really great FWD cars just don't have the same "feel." That in no way means a FWD car can't be a boatload of fun. I'd personally love to build a stripped out track civic hatchback for grins, just because stupid lightweight stupid grippy, properly setup fwd cars do have their charms and I'd like to learn how to drive fast on ANY platform.

Cheers
Nathan