1000bhp Five-Pot Ford Fiesta Keeps The Spirit Of Group B Alive

You have to feel for the fifth-generation Ford Fiesta ST. It wasn’t a bad car, really, it was just completely overshadowed by the two pint-sized STs that came next. The sixth and seventh-generation versions of the Fiesta ST have, after all, gone down as two of the best-handling hot hatches ever made. Going some way to improve the Mk5’s image as a performance car, though, is this monster.

Built with hill climb events in mind, it uses an inline-five turbo engine borrowed from the Focus RS, which, don’t forget, is really a Volvo engine. And Volvo knows a thing about building tough, warbly inline-five engines.

Sure enough, this one’s been cranked up to 1,000bhp, more than three times the output of the MkII Focus RS, and more than six times the output of a Mk5 Fiesta ST. And as the car weighs around a tonne, it has the magical 1:1 power-to-weight ratio.

As you might have noticed from the under-bonnet shot, the engine is also mounted longitudinally rather than transversely, as it now powers both ends of the car via a ‘proper’ all-wheel drive system.

That means it’ll quite happily do brilliant skids, as showcased by its driven Stian Hafsengen, a hill climb and rallycross ace from Norway previously known for throwing shapes in an Escort WRC.

Hafsegen quite happily sends it in this video from Hillclimb Monsters, a YouTube channel to which we’ve lost a lot of time and productivity, and the action here is as captivating as ever. Hafsegen really doesn’t hold back, at one point pushing it a bit too far and losing a front bumper. Yet still happily thrashes the car all the way to the finish line amidst a Group B-like soundtrack.

Fancy more hill climb silliness? The same channel has a video featuring a superbike-engined Fiat 600 being driven with a similar level of intent.