Time was when Ford had performance covered. If you were a young hooligan, you bought a Fiesta ST, while older ones went for a Focus ST. But what if you were a youngish person staring family life in the face or someone with responsibilities but an itch to scratch? That’ll be the Mondeo ST220 of 2002 to 2007.
Powered by a 3.0-litre V6 producing 223bhp and 210lb ft, it could do 0-62mph in a hot-hatch-baiting 6.6sec. As owner John Goldspink confirms, it’s fun surprising young blades at the lights, although you do pay in fuel consumption. About 20mpg around town, anyone?
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Once leased by execs wishing to upstage their inferiors but without the punch to shoot for a BMW 3 Series, most Mondeo STs long ago ended up in the hands of those less able to afford its fuel consumption, never mind the occasional service. Mileages are generally on the high side, and gearboxes and suspensions have usually taken a hammering.
Still, the occasional diamond can be found, such as the one we unearthed. Scott Harper, its owner, has been this ST220’s custodian for just 18 months (he’s fallen in love with a Mercedes E320) but says that during that time, it has been almost faultless. Only ‘almost’ because it failed its last MOT on a dodgy ball joint, since rectified.
“If I wasn’t about to replace it with something a bit meatier, I’d have another ST in a flash,” he says.
His Mondeo is in desirable racing blue. It’s the five-door hatch – more useful than the saloon version but not quite as lusted after as the fairly rare estate, with its capacious boot and clever, self-levelling suspension. One private seller is asking £2250 for his “slightly bished” 2004-reg estate with 150,000 miles and loads of service receipts. Or how about £2999 for a dealer’s 2006/56-reg car with the same mileage?
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Meaty V6
not since the much loved essex V6 engine found in the classic 3 litre capris have we had such a engine in a sports derived model, plenty of options re tuning and of course depends on your budgets, sadly many examples out there run on shoe string budgets by lead footed heroes or chavs are ones to avoid plastered in tacky juvenile decals, if clutch is on way out look at spending £1000 inc labour, maintained well they are a cracking car with good features, the focus st225 front calipers offer a decent upgrade on these cars due to terrible 300mm fitted from factory, as well as replacing many of the bushes with poly ones it peps up the handling nicely, some think the diesel is worthy of the ST badge but many purists think classing any diesel with ST badge is a slur on fords sporting heritage.
220s
The small ads are full of these cars sadly most have been neglected as being run on shoe string budgets or kids chaving them up, viewed 20+ of these cars before finding a honest decent example out of the 9 dealers I visited NONE were as described so typical dealers then, there are a few facebook groups for these cars and some are very clicky so chose wisely, diesel versions do nothing for me as I would rather own a tractor, just inspect fully before coughing up any cash.
so nearly bought
one of the last ones. Blue hatch, in dealer stock, brand new, with Ford assistance ie several £k off. I was going to be a bit of a financial stretch and ended up deciding against, but wish I hadnt.