News

The Ford Focus ST has been taken off sale in the UK ahead of production of the hot hatchback ending in November. 

The Focus ST had been open for orders as recently as April but disappeared from dealer price lists in an update issued on 26 May, despite remaining on Ford's online configurator.

It means the Focus can now be had only with the turbocharged and mild-hybridised 1.0-litre three-cylinder Ecoboost engine, with outputs of 123bhp or 153bhp. Trim choices are limited to Active X Edition, ST-Line and ST-Line X Edition.

All are set to go in the coming months as Ford winds down Focus production. The company has courted buyers for the plant in Saarlouis, Germany that has housed assembly of every Focus but has yet to find a buyer.

Ford has committed to keeping the plant open with 1000 workers (down from a previous 4600) until 2032 if no sale can be made.

Ford UK told Autocar: “There are no new factory orders available for the Focus ST at the moment, but there are around 170 built and unsold currently available within the UK dealer network. This includes 30 of the special ST Edition variant in Azura Blue.”

Asked for clarification on whether that wording means Focus ST orders could be taken again before the end of production, Ford suggested that the situation could change but nothing was confirmed. 

This leaves the door open to the order book reopening if there is a sudden influx of demand, or for a special edition sending the hot hatch into retirement. 

The disappearance of the Focus ST is representative of a wider market trend, with the traditional mass-market hot hatch having all but died out in recent years.

The business case for such cars has been sullied by the shift to more profitable (and ultimately less dynamic) SUVs, as well as tightening fleet emissions regulations that have pushed manufacturers towards EVs and low-emission hybrids.

Hyundai pulled its i30 N and smaller i20 N from Europe last year, the Peugeot 308 GTi didn't survive more than a single generation and Toyota has yet to launch the GR Corolla in the UK.

Of the hot hatches that live on, many have either spiked in price – the Volkswagen Golf GTI now starts north of £40,000 – or remain strictly limited in number, as is the case for the Honda Civic Type R and Toyota GR Yaris.

Indeed, Ford recently turned down the temperature on the Focus ST’s smaller sibling, the Puma ST. Its 197bhp 1.5-litre powerplant and manual gearbox were discontinued, leaving only an uprated version of the regular Puma’s mild-hybrid 1.0-litre powerplant with 158bhp and an automatic gearbox. This is the only ST model to survive the cull of the past few years.

This doesn't spell the end for fast Fords, though: design director Amko Leenarts last year told Autocar that there was “definitely” a future for the brand’s performance cars, referencing the popularity of Formula 1, the Dakar and the World Rally Championship, among others. “If we’re not doing that, we are making the wrong investments,” he said. “So it’s got to transition to our normal car lines globally.”