I went into a slight state of shock when I first saw the Electric Orange paint. It certainly lives up to its name, giving off the kind of glow that suggests the ST had three bowls of Ready Brek for breakfast

Nineteen years ago, Ford revealed its new Sierra Cosworth. As a kid at school, I had a photograph of the RS500 on my desk, right next to my treasured Countach and Testarossa pictures (the F40 hadn’t come out yet, OK?!). The angry grille, the bonnet louvres and that whale-tail spoiler were where it was at in 1987.

Nineteen years later and I found myself waiting for the arrival of my new long-termer as impatiently as a schoolboy yearning for the summer holidays. I’d had the Focus ST press book sitting on my desk for a couple of months and, at the risk of sounding a bit sad, I’d been getting my fix by admiring the pictures when I knew no-one was looking.

So it was Sod’s Law that when EO06 GDE finally arrived at the office, I wasn’t there. With the suspense killing me, I managed to concoct a plan to get Henry to bring the ST out to a photo shoot so that I would have it in time for the weekend.

Henry didn’t mind. He got to drive away in a Powerkit-equipped 997, leaving me with an ST with barely 100 miles on the clock.

I must admit that I went into a slight state of shock when I first saw the Electric Orange paint. It certainly lives up to its name, giving off the kind of glow that suggests the ST had three bowls of Ready Brek for breakfast. The 18in wheels, sports bodykit, twin exhaust pipes and bi-xenon lights complete the purposeful exterior makeover.

The only downside to getting a new car is having to run it in. There are two schools of thought on this. The first is to keep the revs low, avoid putting too much load on the engine and ease it in; the second is to just drive as hard as you can. Opting for the former, my drive home from the shoot was slow, but it gave me time to get a feel for the car and become accustomed to the interior.

The Recaro seats with their orange side bolsters keep the colour theme flowing through the car and, although they may not be to all tastes, I think they work quite well.

A good satnav is always a welcome addition, while the standard ST instrument panel houses gauges for oil pressure, oil temperature and turbo boost pressure. During the running-in period this last-mentioned gauge hardly moved, but just four days after getting my hands on it I was finally free to treat the ST - and myself - to a blast. At last the turbo gauge sprang into life as the five-cylinder engine roared through the rev-range with a note not entirely dissimilar to that of an early Audi quattro.

At 222bhp, the ST comes in just 2bhp shy of the RS500 I used to dream of, and it even has a 30lb ft torque advantage, delivering 236lb ft. Despite being wider, taller and heavier than the Sierra, performance is similar too, the RS500 just pipping the ST to 60mph with a time of 6.2sec (0.3sec faster), while both can break the 150mph barrier. Even the prices are spookily similar: the RS500 cost £19,950 in 1987, while the ST in this spec is £19,190.

With so little in it, I’m happy as pie to be running the ST. It may have taken almost two decades to get my hands on the most desirable fast Ford, but it’s been worth the wait. Now all I’m wondering is how long I’ll have to wait until my Lamborghini arrives…