The motor industry has been hit hard with new car sales plummeting over the past 12 months.
Car manufacturers need to look at the books and see how to save money, shelving plans for new models which will have high research development costs.
This is why Ford of Britain chairman Roelant de Waard said last year that there were no immediate plans for a new Fiesta ST – and the super-green Econetic model is likely to be a bigger seller.
So Ford has now worked with approved company Mountune to create a power upgrade for the new 1.6-litre Fiesta, increasing the horses from 118bhp to 138bhp.
This has helped slash the 0-60mph time from 9.9 seconds to 7.9 seconds putting it on a par with the previous generation Ford Fiesta ST. It’s just a power increase because the Fiesta’s chassis and suspension setup is so impressive normally that the handling doesn’t really need to be improved.
The result is a quicker car developed by Mountune but with a warranty validated by Ford.
Vauxhall has done a similar thing with Thorney Motorsport who took the Corsa VXR and turned it into a hyper-hot hatch, capable of 0-60mph in 5.4 seconds and a top speed of 160mph.
It makes sense for car makers to outsource this sort of work to approved companies. Customers get the performance increase, can buy the car in a normal showroom and they get the comfort of a manufacturer’s warranty.
And if you’ve bought a standard 1.6-litre Fiesta and want a bit more power you can take it along to Mountune and they’ll do the work and the warranty will still be valid.
Is this the future for hot hatches?
Adrian Hearn
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