The Ford Fiesta ST is probably the greatest car pound for pound on the planet

THIS is a weird industry at times.

You get asked to test a new motor — but then some bizarre stipulation stops you from writing about it.

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Take the 2018 Ford Fiesta ST you see here today, clearly a matter of national public interest.

I’m allowed to say I’ve had a “passenger ride” two months before the official media launch but I can’t say I’ve driven it.

Which is a shame because, if I was to drive it, I’d say it was probably the greatest car pound for pound on the planet.

Most certainly the best new car under £20,000 for giggles.

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But I haven’t driven it. Nudge, nudge. So I can’t say that.

I’d also say it was fast, playful and drifty.

I’d say the new exhaust valve makes it pop and bang like a Focus RS.

I’d say the new Quaife limited slip diff gives it much front-end grip.

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I’d say it has quicker steering than any other road car, except for a Ferrari.

But I haven’t driven it. Wink, wink. So I can’t say that either.

I’d also say launch control gives you perfect starts every time.

I’d say you can keep your right foot pinned to the floor and flat-shift like a WRC car.

I’d say Track mode (with the ESC button off) widens the slip angle for gloriously smooth oversteer when you lift off and tuck in the front wheels.

I’d say this thing is all sorts of terrific and that Ford is absolutely giving them away at this price.

But guess what? I haven’t driven it.

So I can’t say any of that. What I can tell you is the old Fiesta ST200 was already brilliant.

This is better. As well as that chassis fit for dancing, the ride is more comfortable and the cabin much improved with fully-adjustable Recaro seats, floating 8in touchscreen, fewer buttons, Bang & Olufsen sound system and so on.

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It is still trumped by the digital dash in the VW Polo, it must be said, but hot hatches are all about fun and handling and that’s where the ST is streets ahead.

Ford has invested in the stuff you can’t see — the feel of the car — rather than the stuff you can see.

There’s more big news under the hood. Out goes the 1.6-litre turbo petrol, replaced by a 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbo petrol. Yes, a three-pot.

And it drops to two cylinders for efficiency under light loads. A world first.

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But fear not, dear reader. It produces the same 200hp, bangs out 0-62mph in 6.5 seconds, two tenths quicker, and raises the top speed a whisker to 144mph. So it’s very clever.

I can’t pretend any longer. Sorry, Ford. I didn’t drive sensibly to see if the engine was lumpy or noisy at low speed.

I was too busy charging at the next bend to even care.

Out June, priced from £18,750 for the ST1. Tick the box for the £800 Performance Pack which adds Quaife LSD and launch control.

VERDICT: Buy one.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

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HERE’S a nice family photo. Five fast Fords packing a total of 1,700 HORSEPOWER – and that’s without the GT supercar.

This picture was taken at Ford’s testing facility (read: playground) at Lommel, Belgium, where one skidpan is so big they call it “the Black Lake”.

It’s a tarmac circle 350 metres wide. What’s your poison? As a Russian spy might say in Salisbury.

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Would you really want to send your child to school on a robo-bus?

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AT first glance, this self-driving school bus looks cool, right?

PacMan yellow with huge OLED entertainment screens and it’s even called SEDRIC, for SElf DRIving Car.

But now ask yourself this: Would you trust a robot with your child’s life?

Er, no.

Nor would I. And neither would anyone else I know.

Just a little glitch and it could turn left into a river or veer right under a lorry.

Yet we are constantly told fully autonomous cars are the future – even as early as 2021 if you believe our clueless Government.

That won’t happen, of course. Not even close. Apart from the odd trial on sunny days on controlled stretches of perfectly-marked road.

But do we even want or need self-driving cars?

Some say they will “buy precious time” and allow us to work or watch Netflix on the move. As well as making roads safer. As well as giving mobility to the blind and disabled.

But others say there are too many hurdles to overcome – like cost, making cameras work in snow and fog, infrastructure (matching road markings and signs), data protection, hacking, the legalities of who is to blame in a crash (the user or the manufacturer) and, above all, acceptance from a sceptical public.

I might also add that some of us still actually love driving.

Of course, both sides are right and car firms admit complete Level 5 autonomy – that’s cars with no steering wheel – are at least two generations away. We’re at Level 2 today, see my guide to the five steps to autonomy, right.

VW boss Jurgen Stackmann compared the race to develop autonomous cars to John F. Kennedy’s moon-shot.

FIVE STEPS TO AUTONOMY

1. Shared control with modes such as adaptive cruise control (the car controls the speed, the driver steers) and hands-free parking (the driver controls the speed, the car steers). The computer is never in control of both.
2. Hands off, eyes on the road. The car can take over both the pedal and wheel – but in practice the driver has to keep a hand on the steering wheel and be ready to take over immediately.
3. Hands off, eyes off . . . sometimes. The driver can disengage and relax in certain conditions but must be able to take over within a certain time frame. Dangerous waters in terms of liability.
4. Hands off, eyes off, mind off. The car can drive itself but if it encounters something it can’t handle, it will ask for human assistance. If it doesn’t get human help, it will abort the trip and park somewhere safe.
5. Fully autonomous on any road, in any conditions. Steering wheel is optional, every occupant a passenger.

He said: “Once Kennedy decided to go to the moon, nobody asked the question, ‘what do you want on the moon? What’s so interesting? Apart from getting some rocks. It was more a vision of ‘can we do it?’.

“This is also, ‘can we do it?’. This is a global move and there will be huge spin-offs along the way that will make driving much safer than we ever believed and that is a tremendous benefit.”

So, does he really believe that one day VW will sell vehicles like SEDRIC and the ID Vizzion concept, without a steering wheel?

Stackmann said: “In time, yes. Level 5 technology won’t be here overnight and people will get used to letting go of steering wheels long before we come to cars without steering wheels.

“The first stage will be motorway or highway driving. That’s the easiest to make autonomous. The most difficult is city driving. You have so many chaotic situations around you.

“So many millions of decisions that your brain takes without thinking that the computers will need to take.”

A final thought from Gill Pratt, chief of Toyota’s Research Institute, who said: “It’s a wonderful, wonderful goal but we are not even close to achieving true Level 5 autonomy.

“It’s going to take many years of machine learning and many more miles than anyone has logged both simulated and real-world to achieve the perfection that is required.”

By that time, I’ll have a free bus pass.