2013 Ford Ecoboost 1.0 via TheCarConnection.com

Ford’s 3-cylinder 1.0 liter Ecoboost engine was designed to replace 1.6 liter naturally aspirated engines while providing 20% better fuel economy, 15% less emissions and more performance. It’s effect on the European small car market won the 1.0 Ecoboost the 2012 Engine of the Year award. To celebrate, Ford Europe outfitted a Formula Ford race car with the 1.0 liter Ecoboost engine and the bare minimum safety equipment to make it street legal. The turbo was upgraded to the bigger unit from the 1.6 liter 4-cylinder engine which pumped the output up to 200 hp. Race driver Nick Tandy was able to set a 7:22 around the Nurburgring which ties the time of the Dodge Viper ACR and is faster than a Nissan GT-R while delivering 56 mpg.

Ford Europe gave Chris Harris the opportunity to drive the Formula Ford Ecoboost on the streets and then take it for his own lap around the Nurburgring. The part that I found the most interesting is simply watching Harris’s reaction. He has recently had the chance to drive some of the most cutting edge green technology performance cars and has been uneasy with them. In the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive Harris was wowed by the fact that the controls strategy for the four drive motors could completely change how the chassis reacted but wasn’t completely sold on the fact that the car was a pure EV. When Chris drove the Porsche 918 Spyder, he was very impressed with the car’s performance and engineering, but the thought of applying the same lightweighting techniques to a gas powered car would yield better performance ultimately bugged him. Here Chris just enjoys the car and hardly mentions the green aspect of the Ecoboost engine. It seems as though being able to hear the boost of the turbo and having the characteristic of a tuned engine, albeit a small one, doesn’t rob the driver of the performance experience despite getting good gas mileage.

It’s looking like Ford has built something special with their new Focus ST. All of the reviews I’ve read so far have picked the ST over the standard benchmark of the hot hatch class, the Volkswagen GTI. The new Focus has a 2.0 liter direct injection EcoBoost engine that puts out 250 horsepower and 26 mpg combined. With a base MSRP of $23,700, the new ST achieves a phenomenal balance of sportiness, practicality and frugality that defines all hot hatches. Chris Harris’s latest video puts the Ford Focus ST up against a couple of Europe’s best hot hatch offerings, the Renaultsport Megane RS and the Vauxhall Astra VXR. He mentions that the test is a little unfair to the Focus because the other two cars are halo models more appropriate for the Focus RS. It ultimately works out for the ST because it manages to hold it’s own while punching above its weight class. The review starts out with seeing how the cars perform on British B-Roads and then ends with a lap around a pretty technical track. All of the driving was down in wet conditions.

The most useful bit of footage is watching Harris throw the cars around the track. All three cars dance around the turns without ever pushing into understeer which is a prominent problem with high power front wheel drive cars. The overall chassis balance on all the cars is well done with “mobile rear axles.” The key to great front wheel drive grip is a stiff rear anti-roll bar. This lifts the inside rear wheel on corner entry which drives the outside front wheel into the tarmac giving it a bit more grip and preventing dreaded understeer. You can really see this working in the Focus ST since it has more of a daily driver soft suspension when compared to the other two track focused cars. I’d say the Focus ST is the Ford product that I’d be most likely to buy new until they come out with a Mustang with the 3.5 liter EcoBoost V6.