Say Hello To The New Three-Cylinder Ford Fiesta ST

That didn’t take long, did it? Just a few months on from revealing the boggo seventh-generation Fiesta, Ford has shown the hot ST version for the world.

Let’s get the big piece of news out of the way: you know the surprisingly muscular 1.6-litre inline-four turbo in the outgoing car? It’s gone. As was first rumoured a little while ago, the ST has indeed dropped a cylinder and a little bit of displacement, switching to a 1.5-litre three-pot.

This does give some cause for concern given that three-cylinder engines don’t tend to be as eager as their four-pot cousins for various reasons, but we’ll reserve judgement until we’ve had a go. Plus, it sounds like an interesting powerplant.

It’s presumably derived from the existing 1.5-litre Ecoboost unit, although Ford describes it as an “all-new” engine. It’s been given a new turbocharger with an “optimised” turbine design to reduce lag, plus “Twin-independent Variable Cam Timing. It’s good for 197bhp and 214lb ft of torque.

Both of those figures are the same as what the outgoing car achieved when its ‘overboost’ function kicked in. The new car will do 0-62mph in an “anticipated’ 6.7 seconds, although there’s no word on top speed just yet. There isn’t an MPG figure available right now either, but Ford is expecting CO2 emissions of around 114g/km, which would be astonishing.

The car gets a torque vectoring by braking system just like the old one, plus three driving modes. The ‘Normal’, ‘Sport’ and ‘Track’ modes each alter the steering, throttle response and traction/stability controls to varying degrees. Stick it in ‘Track’ mode and the traction control goes entirely, with the ESP set to ‘wide slip’ mode. Or if you’d prefer, you can switch off ESP completely.

On the inside it’s a sportified version of the Fiesta cabin we’ve already seen, which means a far plusher space than we’ve been used to seeing from Ford’s ubiquitous supermini.

The ‘Sync 3’ system is present on a floating tablet-style setup, which should prove to be much less frustrating than the clunky old infotainment, and keeping your back and buttocks very happy will be a pair of Recaro bucket seats.

In the cabin you’ll also be - I’m afraid to say - treated to some ‘Electronic Sound Enhancement’, but this does at least work in tandem with an active exhaust valve.

Want one? You’ll be waiting for a little while I’m afraid, with Ford gunning for an early 2018 launch for the car in both three and five-door forms. The outgoing ST was - and probably still is - pound-for-pound the best new performance car around, so this new one should be worth the wait.

It’ll make its public debut at the Geneva Motor Show in a few weeks.