Spotted! Ford Focus ST testing in Australia

The countdown is on to the local launch of the latest Ford Focus ST hot hatch, with examples popping up on the road in Melbourne.

The orange Focus ST manuals seen by carsales at Ford’s Campbellfield offices and on the road in the vicinity, are understood to be vehicles destined for the press test fleet.

Parked alongside two of them at a set of traffic lights we even got a burst of revs and a smile and a nod from one driver before the lights went green and they scooted onto the Hume Highway.

The media launch of the new ST is scheduled for some time in May, although quite how Ford will roll it out to the media during the coronavirus lockdown remains to be seen.

Like the Fiesta ST launched in March, examples of the hot Focus may simply be distributed to individual outlets to do their own thing.

A lot is already known about the fourth generation tuned Focus to hit our shores – first came the ST170, then the XR5 and then the last ST in 2012.

Pricing of $44,690 for either the six-speed manual or seven-speed auto was announced late in 2019. The auto is new to ST and the price is $6400 higher than the old car.

The new ST employs a version of the familiar 2.3-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine also seen here in the Focus RS and Mustang and makes 206kW and 420Nm.

That’s 22kW and 60Nm up on the old ST’s 2.0-litre engine and right in the mix against the Hyundai i30N and Renault Megane RS.

Drive is channelled through an e-diff to the front wheels – no Quaife mechanical locker like the Fiesta ST sadly – which are shod in 19-inch Michelin rubber.

For more detail on local spec, go here.

And if you want to know if the drive experience is worth getting excited about it, then go here.