The engine note is “proper naughty”
A four-cylinder car should sound like a dried pea rattling around in a tin can, but the ST sounds terrific. How's this? Well firstly, the EcoBoost engine is no ordinary four pot (see above), but mostly because there's a “sound enhancement system” which plays the engine note through the loudspeaker system. The noise depends on a complicated “sound synthesis” algorithm based, Ford tells us, on “engine speed, throttle pedal position and torque”. When you drive like a nana, you hear virtually nothing, but apply foot right and it roars like a Brain Blessed exiting a library. Is it cheating? Of course it is! Will you care? Nope!