It has taken some time for the very small performance car to catch on here with our wide open spaces people are used to big cars and big power, not tiny cars that performance is based on handling over mass and HP. Of course handling has grown immensely more popular here but making a big car handle works, to a certain point but look at the R&T test where in the Mountains the ST came in third place over much higher powered and far costlier machines. Not sure the exact quote but something along the lines "if you cannot drive the Fiesta ST fast you just cannot drive"
Having built dozens of cars for fun, 510 Datsuns, Miatas, Vettes, Subaru, Scion, BMW, and hundreds of thousands of miles of fun in all sorts of weather, all sorts of surfaces, etc....I much prefer a small car with decent power and superb handling over anything else and FWD is not needed to have fun, I find it to easy and less entertaining, the full sorted out Vettes to simply be to fast, the E36, Datsun and probably this project are my favorite all time cars, so far for real fun, none of which will or were highly powered and I have barely driven this car. I did build, no where near this level, the first 1ZZ Matrix turbo and made is a great SM autocross car that was still a very nice street car with 35MPG and the ST platform and stock setup is light years better so I have very high expectations from this car, so much so I think I have gone well beyond what I really needed to do but it has been my way for most of my cars so why not this one, my retirement car I will need to use for quite some time, make it the best I can)
This would be my minimalist mod list for the ST.
-Modded turbo or bigger one but with a great power band and not just more peak power.
-Bolt ons to support the turbo
-Coilovers or the right shock and spring setup
-Carefully research and decide on what sway bar setup but with the right springs stock may be all that is needed.
-More front brake mass with less weight as I track the car, more reliable, less maintenance and less overall operational cost.
-Shorter and more precise shifting
-Cooling as needed
-Lowest weight, fully optimized for function over style, wheel and tires to fit my needs
-LSD
Sell off the stock parts, not much money but it offsets things a bit, total above mods then could be done for around $7500
Buy a car with Recaro seats, no NAV, no Sunroof, no other extras as possible, make a deal on the right now, a barely used one, etc....$22000k or less for a new one.
Total could be $29,500 down to say $26,500 or even less, a bit more if get a bigger turbo, less if buy some used parts.......the bottom line is a very very capable car that would shock the owners of most "performance cars" on track, in the mountains, autocrossing, etc....and simply more fun, more of the time.
I see no real need for the RS unless it came in at a very attractive price and not sure I would even want AWD unless going to use it to rally.
Ford could offer it the way I would setup a car, call it the STX, etc, for less than $30k easily, ready to go, full warranties.
