What's all this about?
You know how a lot of manufacturers offer a trim grade that has all the looks of their sportiest models without any of the performance increases? Think S line for Audi, M Sport for BMW, AMG Line for Mercedes or R-Sport for Jaguar. Well, now Ford is at the same game, announcing a new specification for its Fiesta and Focus families.
Let me guess - ST-Line?
You've got it. Priced from £15,645 for the Fiesta (three- and five door body styles available) and from £20,595 for the Focus (five-door and estate), these cars sit at the top of the 'regular' Ford line-ups and are a halfway house, if you like, to full-on ST models above.
So what will I get for my cash, then?
In terms of the aesthetics, the ST-Line cars come with a honeycomb trapezoidal front grille; dark surrounds for the front fogs; a front lip spoiler for the Fiesta ST-Line and a bumper insert on the Focus ST-Line; a rear diffuser and roof spoiler on both cars; a black beltline beneath the windows; meatier side skirts; ST-Line badging on the front wings; unique 17-inch alloys in Rock Metallic Grey; sports seats with red stitching; a perforated leather ST-style steering wheel with grey stitching; an ST-style gear knob; dark woven headlining; and ST-Line scuff plates.
That's a lot of stuff. How about the mechanicals?
There is one upgrade, which is 10mm lowered sport suspension for both cars. Other than that, Ford will only sell them with the higher-powered engines already available. For the Fiesta, that means a choice of three versions of the excellent 1.0-litre EcoBoost three-pot, all with five-speed manuals, for the petrolheads - pick from 100-, 125- or 140hp, with the former two recording sub-100g/km CO2 emissions - or a 95hp 1.5-litre TDCi diesel, also with a five-speed manual and returning 78.5mpg and 94g/km.
And how about the Focus?
The 125hp 1.0 triple makes it through, although here it has a six-speed transmission instead of the five of the Fiesta; and that can be manual or automatic. The same gearbox choices are available on the other Focus ST-Line models, which are 150- and 182hp versions of the 1.5-litre four-cylinder EcoBoost petrol engines, as well as a 120hp 1.5-litre TDCi and a 150hp 2.0-litre TDCi. If you pick an automatic, the Focus ST-Line gets paddle shifts on the steering wheel.
Any word from Ford on why it is offering these now?
Yes, it's all to do with growing fast Ford sales in the past two years. Over to Roelant de Waard, the vice president for Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford of Europe, who says: "With our new ST-Line range, even more customers can experience sporty style and driving dynamics inspired by our most exciting Ford Performance line-up ever, that includes models such as the Focus RS, new Fiesta ST200 and Ford GT supercar. This year we expect to sell 40,000 performance cars in Europe, a 50 per cent increase compared with 2015, which in turn saw performance car sales rise by 61 per cent compared with 2014."
Matt Robinson - 2 Jun 2016