Hotter Ford Fiesta and Focus confirmed for Oz

Two and a half years after they were released in Europe, Ford Australia has announced official factory-backed Mountune performance upgrade kits for its Fiesta ST and Focus ST hot hatches.

The good news is the first Mountune Performance Products released by Ford Australia will boost the Fiesta ST's outputs to a healthy 158kW at 6000rpm and 320Nm at 3000rpm, and Focus ST increases to 202kW at 5500rpm and 400Nm at 2750rpm.

That's up 24kW and 80Nm on the standard 134kW/240Nm 1.6-litre turbo-petrol engine in the standard Fiesta ST – named carsales.com.au's Best Performance Car Under $100,000 in 2015 – and 18kW/40Nm up on the 184kW/360Nm 2.0-litre turbo four in the Focus ST.

The Mountune-tweaked Focus ST's outputs might fall short of those of the 257kW/400Nm 2.3-litre turbo four in the upcoming Focus RS AWD (and all three models remain manual-only), but it will be far cheaper than the Focus hyper-hatch's $50,990 starting price.

The Focus ST kit, which takes about two hours to fit, has a recommended retail price of $4135. Add this to the car's purchase price of $38,990 plus on-road costs, and you can have Renault Megane RS275 Trophy performance from just $43,125.

The Fiesta ST kit, meantime, takes just one hour to fit and has a recommended retail price of $2328, bringing its total price to just $28,318 plus ORCs – still less than the Citroen DS 3, Peugeot 208 GTi and Renault Clio RS200.

Even better, the Mountune kits will become available by mid-year though the new Ford Licensed Accessory (FLA) program established in Australia this month.

That means they are backed by the Ford Express New Vehicle Warranty of three years or 100,000km when fitted at point of new vehicle sale.

FLAs sold and fitted by an authorised Ford dealer to pre-owned vehicles will be covered for the remainder of its new-car warranty or the 12-month/20,000km Ford Express Parts and Accessories Warranty – whichever is longer. The latter warranty applies to FLAs sold over the counter by Ford dealers.

Ford says its new FLA program will be expanded, but so far there's no sign yet of the Roush Performance kits, including a 500kW Stage 3 supercharger kit for the Mustang, that we expect will become officially available via Ford Australia dealers.

"Introduced in February 2016 the FLA program will allow Ford to grow the range of accessories available for sale, [and] back them with a comprehensive Ford warranty, offer aftermarket accessory products, including some bearing the Ford logos, that have undergone a robust governance process and quality assessment by Ford.

"Mountune Performance products are some of the first to be offered as part of the new FLA program," said Ford, adding that its Australian engineers tested the Mountune kits at the company's You Yangs proving ground in Victoria.

UK-based Mountune has been designing and engineering race and road car performance products for more than three decades, with development taking place on British roads and at the Nurbürgring Nordschleife.

"Our Australian R&D and product investments are paying off as we transform Ford in Australia and customers respond to our new vehicles," said Ford Australia president and CEO Graeme Whickman in a press release today.

"We think our new Mountune Performance packs will bring even more excitement as we expand our performance vehicle line-up as part of plans to launch 20 new vehicles by 2020."

In detail, the Mountune Performance MP215 package for the Ford Fiesta ST comprises a custom aluminium high-flow airbox with dual cold air feeds, high-flow panel air-filter, porous lower air feed hose, revised engine calibration, Mountune Performance badge and mTune handset for performance calibration.

Meantime, the Mountune Performance MP275 package for the Focus ST consists of a large-capacity alloy intercooler (black no logo), low-cost cast crossover duct (black), high-flow dual-entry air-filter, revised engine calibration, Mountune Performance badge and mTune handset for performance calibration.

In the UK, Mountune claims its kits slashes the Focus ST's 0-100km/h acceleration by more than half a second to just 5.95 seconds, making it even quicker than Ford's legendary Sierra Cosworth RS500. It's also said to reduce the fourth-gear acceleration time from 50 to 100km/h by eight-tenths, to just 4.9sec.

Similarly, the Mountune-kitted Fiesta is claimed to hit 100km/h in 6.7 seconds – two-tenths faster than the standard Fiesta ST – and accelerate from 50 to 100km/h seven-tenths quicker in 5.7sec.

It's not clear where the Mountune kit leaves the 'Fiesta ST Plus' Ford is rumoured to reveal at next month's Geneva motor show, potentially as a swansong performance model to send off the current sixth-generation model, which is now into its eighth year of production.

Ford has ruled out an RS version of its existing Fiesta , but a special performance version – potentially employing Mountune bits – could be just the thing to celebrate 40 years of the Fiesta this year, before an all-new Ford light-car emerges within the next year or so.