02 Nov 06
The orange paint job adds a hefty £695 to the £18,520 price of the most popular ST2 variant. My car was specced up by someone else, who subsequently cancelled the order, and it reached me peppered with options, some of them welcome. The full-colour and fully integrated touchscreen DVD navigation system (£2000) makes a big difference to London life, especially now that Red Ken has made driving in the city such a fraught experience. So too do the Bluetooth telephone system (£300) and the rear parking sensors (£300).
I could do without two of the options. The Recaro Seat Pack 1 (£250) replaces the rear bench with two 'Recaro style' sculptured chairs. They look good but turn the car into a four-seater. The Visibility Pack (£250), which comprises automatic headlamps and rain-sensing wipers, is useful but hardly essential.
The final modification to my car is a mini spare wheel. Most STs are supplied with a can of foam for puncture repair, but as a no-cost option you can also have a space saving spare wheel. This is something of a mixed blessing. If a tyre bursts on the way to Heathrow, I'll probably be glad of it, but the mini spare steals almost half the boot space. Surely runflat tyres would be a better option?
All these toys lift the price of the ST to £22,315. This seems horribly excessive, but Ford's research suggests that most ST customers make extensive use of the options list. The average price of an ST leaving the factory is £19,400.
