Ford beefs up its range with ST Line variants

Ford, as we all know by now, is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the company establishing its first manufacturing plant outside America here in Ireland. It was a momentous occasion both for Ford and for Ireland and has rightly been well celebrated by both parties.

The idea of the ST Line is to provide punters with a new level of specification across the Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo, and Kuga ranges and recently we’ve driven two of them — the Mondeo and Kuga ST Line models which feature a load of added kit for not that much more money.

It was a handy way for Ford to freshen up their model line-up without actually having any new models to present early in this anniversary year — at least until the arrival of the latest Fiesta later this year.

Several friends — some with a soft spot for Ford and some not — got quite excited when they saw the cars, which in this case were the Mondeo and Kuga variants and some even thought that Ford had actually introduced specific ST variants of both machines.

In fairness to Ford, part of the deal with the cars is that they all get a revamped and much more sporty suspension set-up and I found that this — in the case of both Mondeo and Kuga — spiced the driving experience up neatly, making both cars that little bit sharper than their ‘regular’ siblings.

Ford says it is equipping the cars with the most powerful engines from its ‘normal’ range, but that’s a little bit of a bluff really as these are no different than what’s on offer day-to-day. That is not to say they are bad in any way — far from it — just no different to what is readily available anyway.

What’s not readily available outside the realm of this new specification is the added bodykit, including a full body styling kit, body coloured side skirts, wheel arch extensions, front and rear skirts, door claddings, specific alloys, and more.

In fairness, this makes the ST Line variants stand out from the pack and thus gives the owner something to brag about in the pub/golf club/office/hairdressers and will undoubtedly make for many complimentary comments from by-standers — as it did when I had both cars.

The bottom line, however, is that this is very much an aesthetic exercise which will cost you a few extra bob for the privilege.

In the case of the Mondeo and Kuga versions we tried they are undeniably nice cars and will sell well to a select bunch of afficianados who will love them dearly.