Ford has launched a red-blooded challenge to Volkswagens hot hatch champion. Nicholas Rufford and Andrew Frankel of The Sunday Times drove them head to head.
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VOLKSWAGEN GOLF GTI
It has been like a feud simmering between two street fighters. For months Ford and Volkswagen have been circling each other and exchanging insults over Fords plans for a rival to the Golf GTI. Now they have moved in and started brawling.
Its quite a spectacle. The Ford Focus ST is a racy derivative of Britains bestselling car. It was launched last week after a big build-up backed by the American car makers marketing muscle. Until now the two manufacturers have avoided each other by living in different parts of town: Ford in the blue-collar district and VW in the upmarket area. With the launch of the ST, Ford has marched into VWs neighbourhood and kicked the German where it hurts.
You can see why Ford wants a piece of the action. With sales of 23m since its launch in 1974 (1.6m of them GTIs), VWs Golf is one of the most successful cars of all time, outsold globally only by the Toyota Corolla. Independent of all other VW models, the Golf is a 10 billion industry keeping at least 40,000 people employed worldwide.
Nemesis follows hubris and Ford believes the GTI has had its day. Its new ST (ST stands for Sport Technologies) is quicker, more agile and more appealing to the smart set. So far the companys marketing men have talked a good fight and theyve worked the crowd brilliantly. The Focus ST is Fords most powerful production hatchback, they say. Its turbocharged 2.5 litre engine has 10% more horsepower than the Golfs and will push the car from 0 to 62mph in 6.5sec compared with 7.2sec in the Golf.
Ford has succeeded through advance press coverage in landing the first punch. Some car magazines have already described the Ford as a GTI-slayer. Well, I have a question. How can the GTI be slain when according to the same magazines it is already dead? Previously it was reported that the GTI had been slain by the Vauxhall Astra VXR and before that by the the Peugeot 306 GTi, the Honda Civic Type-R, Renault Clio Williams, and . . . you get the idea. Its been killed off half a dozen times but it keeps coming back.
The second line of attack by those trying to write off the Golf is to dismiss the recent version as no more than a tarted up Skoda. These days, the critics say, the Golf is indistinguishable under its skin from an Octavia, with which it shares a chassis and other components.
This is an interesting argument but it doesnt really stand scrutiny. After all, humans share 95% of their genes with chimpanzees. That doesnt mean a chimp would be as quick as Fernando Alonso in a Formula One car, or, for that matter, that Alonso would be as good at selling PG Tips.
All of this Im afraid is not nearly enough to finish off the Golf. Like most success stories it began humbly. Nearly 30 years ago Alfons Loewenberg, a VW engineer, and a group of co-workers modified a standard Golf in spare moments during their evenings and weekends. They convinced management to back their project and 5,000 were built. The gamble paid off.
The GTIs launch coincided with the sudden upward mobility of a generation of Europeans. If you were a young urban professional in the 1980s you could zoom around the city in your GTI pretending to be a high roller, getting paralytic on Friday nights and losing your Filofax and car keys. You could cram it with skiing gear and roar off to discover strange places like Verbier, a sort of Chelsea en Alp. As its owners lifestyles changed, so did the Golf. In its third incarnation it was bigger inside and loaded with safety equipment, ideal for baby seats and tots that had suddenly arrived. Admittedly, for a while it also became middle-aged and flabby.
VW realised the GTI had lost its edge and reinvented it for the next generation. The current Mark V has a 2 litre turbocharged engine that packs 200bhp less than the Focus but almost twice the power of the original. Its safer and a lot cleverer. It knows how to stop in the wet and get 35 miles out of a gallon of petrol. Instead of the dodgy stereo player with the Dire Straits cassette stuck in it that was standard in all Mark Is theres now a sophisticated hi-fi with a USB or iPod socket.
The car wont fall apart and will hardly ever go wrong. Owners of modern GTIs wont experience propping the bonnet open on a cold morning at Clapham Common to spray WD-40 on damp HT leads. In fact, most wont know where the bonnet catch is. It is a car for the digital-comfort-zone generation.
Of course, the Focus ST is technically every bit as good as the GTI and in some ways superior. By using a Volvo engine Ford has played VW at its own game of component sharing. Others may tell you that the Golfs dynamics are better, or its handling at speeds above 100mph is a tad more refined. After testing both cars I can say honestly apart from the fact that Ford supplied a demonstrator car in electric orange with matching interior which gave the disconcerting impression that I was driving a tangerine there was not much between them.
The difference is in brand image. Thats not to say image doesnt matter. Manufacturers spend millions of pounds in marketing and promotion including advertisements in this newspaper precisely because it does make a difference. Over decades Ford and VW have developed distinct followings.
The ST wouldnt look right outside a mossy vicarage. It goes with hisnhers dressing gowns and home Jacuzzis. It has a pumped up body with low-profile tyres and an aerofoil. Owning it would be like having Grant Mitchell on your drive. You could give the Golf to the valet parkers at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo and not be looked down upon, but you wouldnt get that reception in a souped-up Focus. Theres no sense of understated quality. Like the sharp suits advertised in lads mags, it wont wear in, itll wear out.
Im pleased to say, though, that after Andrew Frankel and I finished racing the two cars at Silverstone we put aside our differences and went for a bite to eat. I wanted to go to a country pub; he wanted a chicken korma. You see how it rubs off? We couldnt agree so we ended up in a Chinese. Neither of us liked it very much but it was cheap and there were lots of them around.
Nicholas Rufford
VITAL STATISTICS Model Volkswagen Golf GTI
Engine type Four-cylinder, 1984cc turbo
Power/Torque 197bhp @ 5100rpm / 207 lb ft at 1800rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Fuel/CO2 35.3mpg (combined) / 192g/km
Performance 0-62mph: 7.2sec, 146mph
Price From 19,995
Verdict Always one step ahead of rivals
Rating 5/5
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Its not exactly the colour youd choose but finding other flaws in this new Ford Focus ST is about as easy as dancing on wet concrete. The simple truth is that Ford has judged the ST somewhere close to perfection and positioned it quite beyond the reach of the Golf GTI.
This surprises me for two reasons. First, the Golf is a decent car. Having been critical for more than 10 years of how VW had used the GTI badge as a way of flogging slow, unsporting and unworthy Golfs, I found this current generation had returned the Golf GTI to its best form for at least two decades. More significantly, perhaps, my expectations based on the first Ford ST the Fiesta werent high. The Fiesta ST is a car thats been tuned to be at its best on the race track which, in light of how such a car is typically used, is ludicrous. But the Focus ST is simply great everywhere.
Model Ford Focus ST
Engine type Five cylinders in line, 2522cc
Power/Torque 223bhp at 6100rpm / 228 lb ft at 1600rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Fuel/CO2 30.4mpg (combined), 224g/km
Performance 0-62mph: 6.5sec, 150mph
Price 17,495
Verdict Sets standard for all other hot hatches
Rating 5/5
source:http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,26789-1847556_2,00.html
