Ford Focus ST

Pricing and specifications for the 2021 Ford Focus ST have emerged, revealing an array of minor tweaks to Ford's hot hatch hero. The updates – which arrived with Model Year (MY) 2020.75 vehicles built from June 2020 onwards, and carry over into MY21 unchanged – see the flagship Focus both gain and lose a notable amount of standard equipment.

The Ford Focus ST wagon offered in Europe is not planned for Australia. However, Ford Australia expects the new Focus ST hatch due in showrooms this week will broaden its appeal with the option of an automatic transmission for the first time. Figures supplied by Ford show demand for manual versus automatic transmissions for all hot hatches sold in Australia is fairly even, at 53 per cent versus 47 per cent respectively.

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The interior of the next-generation Ford Focus ST has been spied within the Nurburgring complex, revealing how Ford plans to make its fresh Focus hotter, inside and out. It looks to be the same vehicle snapped last week, so we don't really learn anything new about the ST's exterior design. Once again we can see the ST's chiselled front and rear bumpers, twin exhaust outlets, and more prominent side skirts. Zooming in we can see the new ST's large alloy wheels are shod with Michelin tyres.

Ford has announced the launch of Ford Performance sub-brand in Australia, backed by the news the 2018 Mustang will be homologated for the 2019 Supercars season. The first Ford Performance-branded models to touch Australian soil will be the 2018 Mustang and hotly-anticipated Ranger Raptor. The company says its performance arm is focused on "developments in aerodynamics, light-weighting, electronics, powertrain performance and fuel efficiency".