{"id":372,"date":"2019-12-05T09:59:42","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T09:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/?p=372"},"modified":"2019-12-05T09:59:50","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T09:59:50","slug":"ford-focus-st-crowned-top-gear-hot-hatch-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/2019\/12\/05\/ford-focus-st-crowned-top-gear-hot-hatch-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford Focus ST Crowned Top Gear Hot Hatch of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It inherits the award given to its Ford Performance sibling last year \u2013 the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/new-cars\/ford\/fiesta-st\/\">Fiesta ST<\/a> \u2013 and was collected by Ford Performance European Manager, Stefan Muenzinger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Top Gear\u2019s Hot Hatch of the Year scored highly thanks to its \u201cstrong and tuneful\u201d 2.3-litre, four-cylinder EcoBoost engine, and praised its braking and grip ability, thanks to a \u201cbrilliantly integrated diff&nbsp;and well-chosen adaptive damping.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Focus ST has no vices. No weaknesses. No chinks in its armour\u201d, said Top Gear.com. \u201cIt\u2019s a car that stands at your shoulder in any situation, exuding an \u201cI\u2019ve got this\u201d confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 1700 examples have been sold since it went on sale earlier this year, and now evaluations of the 155mph <a href=\"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/new-cars\/ford\/new-focus\/\">Focus ST estate<\/a> in police car form are underway, with forces up and down the country set to trial its blend of load-carrying ability, performance and handling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It inherits the award given to its Ford Performance sibling last year \u2013 the Fiesta ST \u2013 and was collected by Ford Performance European Manager, Stefan Muenzinger. Top Gear\u2019s Hot Hatch of the Year scored highly thanks to its \u201cstrong and tuneful\u201d 2.3-litre, four-cylinder EcoBoost engine, and praised its braking and grip ability, thanks to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6],"tags":[16,35,43,60],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ford-focus","category-ford-news","tag-ford","tag-ford-focus","tag-ford-focus-st","tag-platts-ford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.platts.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}