So I asked them to fit a brand new tyre, which was the start of a festival of high-grade uselessness. No local branches had the correct 205/40 ZR17 size in stock, then they promised to source one and didn't, and when they finally did get around to ordering one, they then gave it to someone else before I turned up to have it fitted. Two weeks later the Fiesta finally got its new tyre. Well, what do you expect from people who can't even spell 'quick' properly.

Happily, whilst the ST was still running on its 'probably okay' tyre, I managed to borrow its lower-powered lieutenant, the Zetec S. This car went on sale at the same time as the ST but received precious little press coverage because everyone was distracted by the more powerful model, and that's a shame because the S is, quite frankly, bloody brilliant. The engine may only be a 99bhp 1.6 - or there's an 89bhp diesel if you like that sort of thing - and it may lack the superlight-flywheel-immediacy of the ST's 2-litre, but what it has instead is a keenness to keep revving that makes the faster car feel tight-chested. It's not mega-fast by any stretch but it still covers ground at a clip, not least because the chassis is a thing of agile wonder. In fact, it makes the ST feel distinctly lead-footed by comparison, turning in more keenly, skimming over cracked and battered tarmac with grace and composure where the faster car jitters and tramlines. In last month's evo I was having a rant about cars that are spoilt by over-large alloys and I'm starting to think that the Fiesta ST falls into that compromised bracket. If it wore thinner, 16-inch wheels like those on the Zetec S, what it lost in pugnacious visuals maybe it would gain threefold in a more delicate, balanced and nimble experience on cracking back-roads. In fact, in some countries the ST actually comes on 16s and you pay more for inch-bigger alloys but in the UK the 17-inchers are standard. Thanks a lot, marketing department.

Sadly the Zetec S had to go back and, with the ST running on a more than 'probably okay' new tyre, I took it on holiday to France. Short gearing - fifth works out at about 20mph per 1000rpm - plus heavy air-con use and, in fairness, what now turns out to be a super-pessimistic fuel gauge meant an irksome average tank range not far north of 250 miles, but otherwise the Fiesta swallowed the autoroutes without aggro. Thing is, I was more interested in what happened once we got off the arterial roads. Those terrific, swooping, bucking, rough-surfaced French country roads always seemed to me to be the reason why French cars used to have such cracking chassis, at least until they recently lost the soft-riding/sweet-handling plot, and some of the best of modern Fords have had an old-skool French feel in the way they could 'flow' down a twisty road. So, here was a top chance to find out if the ST has got that sass, and the conclusion was a resounding... erm, sort of.

It was, no doubt, lots of fun on those ribbons of lightly trafficked Dordogne road that you'd kill to have outside your British front door; it can really punch out of bends, the amount of grip is never in doubt and the damping keeps it feeling taut and tied down. But what it lacks is a sense of effortlessly helping you to string bends together in one fluid, rolling movement of fast cross-country pace. And that, funnily enough, is where the cheaper, lower-powered Fiesta Zetec S really scores. On a great road, the ST has the slightly thudding, variable-tempo flow of someone who's still learning to play the piano. Whereas, on the same road, the Zetec S would be Little Richard.