2016 Ford Fiesta ST, Black Out

Ford Fiesta ST, Black Out. Afraid of the dark? You should be. You never know where John Angove’s custom-kitted, 300bhp ST might be hiding… Words EMMA WOODCOCK / Photos JON HILL

Sparking against the dark in thick, searing slashes, it’s the electric blue that grabs you first. As wide as your thumbprint and twice as individual, it traces the Fiesta ST in bold neon daubs, dividing the familiar upswept shape into jagged, jarring elements. ‘Here is the spoiler!’ it shouts. ‘This a tailight!’ ‘Look at the front grille!’ Assailed by intersections and attacked by jolting, unfamiliar angles, the ink black bodywork doesn’t get a chance to speak. Your senses are too busy elsewhere. Follow the lines down, down, down and the underlying Ford fights back with details that are too good to miss. The studs shout out first, ringing each corner with a dozen flashes of bare metal. Hold your gaze and the wheelarches themselves fuzz into focus: huge, distended hoops straight from the styling schools of Rocket Bunny and Rauh Welt Porsche. They’re stitched together by textured, low slung side skirts, the two elements conspiring together to set serious stance. This Fiesta must be something pretty special. Roll round to the rear and the shocks continue. Gone is the standard rear bumper, with its colour-coded chicane and neatly tucked twin exhaust, and the item in its place is picking up what the Mk3 Focus RS has laid down. Affixed to a low-slung lip, the Fiesta sprouts four stubby diffuser strakes to separate a pair of chunky exhaust tips.

FIESTA ST 

ENGINE Fiesta ST 1.6-litre EcoBoost, Revo Stage 3 tuning package as fitted by SCC Performance, including Revo induction kit, turbo-back Milltek exhaust system with custom SCC performance dual exhaust rear section, Pro Alloy intercooler, silicone hoses, 68mm silicone turbo inlet elbow and Turbo Technics S242 hybrid turbo 

POWER 300bhp and 300lb.ft, estimated 

TRANSMISSION Standard Fiesta ST six-speed manual 

SUSPENSION ST Suspensions springs allround, otherwise standard 

BRAKES Revo by Alcon front brake kit with 332mm two piece, floating front discs, uprated aluminium calipers, Ferodo DS Performance brake pads, 6061 aluminium bells and caliper brakes, Hosetechnik stainless steel brake lines, Motul Dot 5.1 brake fluid 

WHEELS & TYRES 17in DTD DGI alloys in gloss black with Pirelli 205/40 tyres all-round 

EXTERIOR 2016 Fiesta ST body in custom black with extensive custom electric blue pinstriping, custom designed and produced Transit GT front apron, front splitter, bolton wheelarches, sideskirts, rear bumper and integral rear diffuser, SCC and Revo tail badges, parts supplier decals 

INTERIOR 2016 Fiesta ST interior with custom retrimmed steering wheel, complete with BMW Individual blue leather sections, grey Alcantara, blue and red stitching and custom ‘RS 300’ script, custom enlarged steering wheel thumb rests, custom retrimmed gearshift gaiter in grey Alcantara with blue stitching, custom front seats with enlarged side bolsters, all seats custom retrimmed in black leather, BMW Individual blue leather and BMW Individual Alcantara, finished in Ferrari Daytona style with central spine and perforated leather stripes, Recaro logo and custom ‘RS 300’ script stitched into front seats

If the sides didn’t get you on side and the rear didn’t make it clear, the front apron is a screaming symphony of aggression. Forget the smooth creases of a standard ST: this Fiesta has an entirely custom front apron. Where once the grille sat smooth with the surrounding bodywork, its squat honeycomb is now set deep in basking shark lips, reinforced by a pair of extruding cheekbones that give the car an exotic, alien vibe. Beneath them sit two auxiliary grilles, tall, wide patches that provide some rallycross edge and locate a horizontal slither of LEDs that sparkle against the night. Turn your gaze in and you’ll spy a pair of struts which rise up and away from the body, leaning under the main grille in mirrored diagonal slashes. Far back between them, the moonlight picks out the glint of a substantial intercooler. Deep and sharp, the aggressive front bumper builds to its most striking feature: the front splitter. Starting below the front wheelarch, it extends ahead of even the other styling features, reaching lower down and further forwards than anything else in sight before swerving up to underline the main grille.

Stung through with style, the ST shakes out graphic novel looks with every one of its thick, blue lines. Almost a caricature of speed, none of these bodywork additions have come off the shelf: they’re all unique. You’d expect nothing less from John Angove and Stuart Bowen, a pair of committed Ford fans and the main men behind van customisers Transit GT. After a decade in business, and over 3500 commercial vehicle conversions, they know their way around a custom bodykit. “What we wanted was a rally-bred, handmade look for the road,” explains John, “and added our look to make a car which is a one-off!” The pair and their design team started out with an idea for a more aggressive ST that was still within Ford’s own design language, before channelling their concept into a number of hand-sketched drawings. Sketches complete, they then purchased a donor Fiesta which was used to make moulds for the kit itself.

The guys couldn’t stop there and, with the additions freshly formed, quickly turned their attentions to the livery. “It just sort of developed,” John confesses, “we were looking to do something different and never do anything twice. Well, we really love the JPS Lotus Formula One cars but you can hardly have cigarette references on a car nowadays, so we decided to give it a twist. That’s when we ended up settling on neon blue around the edges – kind of like TRON!” With the popping, punching exterior layers complete, the standard interior was looking distinctly… indistinct. Luckily, John had a plan to add some tang to the trim. Keen to replicate the car’s exterior flashes of electric blue, he set out to secure Alcantara and leather to match. BMW Individual, the German manufacturer’s in-house customisation department, provided the perfect shade, while John also hunted down matching blue thread.

The steering wheel was the first item to benefit from the team’s vision. The rim benefits larger thumbprints and two new sections of trim: a bright blue straight ahead market tops the tiller, while a larger neon strip encases the base. A small section of the leather wrapper has also been cut out and filled with grey Alcantara, the blue and red stitching echoing the twin strings that hold the wheel together. Alcantara coats the centre sections too, the lower of which has also been embroidered with a custom ‘RS 300’ script. But what does that stand for? “It’s simple really,” John laughs, “we called it the ‘RS 300’ because it’s got 300bhp.” The power hike comes courtesy of a full Revo Stage 3 package, as fitted by SCC Performance. “The beauty with John is that he just drops the car off the week,” explains Robert Oldman, the SCC boss man, “and asks ‘Can you make this faster?’ We tell him how much it’s going to cost, and he just tells us to get on with it and do it.”

The resulting spec is something fierce. Producing 300bhp and 300lb.ft, power highlights include a Turbo Technics S242 turbo, a turbo-back three-inch Milltek exhaust system with a custom rear section and a Revo induction kit. Revo’s big brake kit with Alcon calipers and 332mm discs, and an ST Suspensions spring kit keep everything under control, while 17in DTD alloys and 205/40 Pirellis send the power to the floor. Back inside, the custom seats have got your back. Their dazzling finish should get your attention too. The fronts started life as standard Fiesta ST items but now benefit from larger side bolsters and lashes of lightning blue. “I had a firm idea of how the seats were going to look,” John recalls, “We sent them away to an upholsterer for six weeks. They had to make a template and a design for us to okay before they went into production.” Taking inspiration from the 1960s Ferrari Daytona, their work has created something truly unique, with perforated leather strips adding old school luxury to the new age shape.

Add all that together, combining SCC’s technical brilliance with Transit GT’s outof- this-world aesthetics, and you’ve got a world beater with plenty of fans. Several people have tried to buy the Fiesta to date but, though it will be offered for sale at some point in the future, John and Stuart aren’t looking to sell any day soon. They’re simply having too much fun. “We love fast, stupid front-wheel drive cars,” they grin, “we had a Mk3 Focus RS at the same time and, even though it’s got a 50bhp advantage and four-wheel drive, the Fiesta was right there with it. The ST isn’t about the 0 to 60mph; it’s about the 60 to a lot… it’s like when the pace car comes in at a race and off you go!” You can have the clubs and the 4am kebabs; this ST is our kind of night life…

Sources: Fast Ford Summer 2018

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