And you can understand their envy. Resplendent in a red the colour of freshly-spilled blood, the Vauxhall Astra VXR looks lean and mean, bristling with automotive muscle, its visage set in the kind of scowl which seems to say: “You lookin’ at my bird?”.
The three-door Astra is a triumph of design even in bog-standard form. In VXR guise it is a gloriously aggressive chunk of metal and plastic, the air dam, sports grille, subtle side skirting and rear spoiler giving it a sense of purpose without seeming as if Vauxhall have merely raided the boy racer bolt-ons cabinet. Best of all, there is that “trapezoidal centre exit visible exhaust tailpipe”, announcing that it is venting one Behemoth of an internal combustion engine.
Short of putting rocket fuel in your family runabout, it is difficult to know how you could get more poke for your pound than the Astra VXR. We are talking about a 236bhp turbo-charged 2-litre engine with a top speed of 152mph and a 0-60mph figure of 6.2mph, but for sales rep money. Those performance statistics mean it gives the lowliest Porsche Boxster a run for its money, despite being almost £13,000 cheaper.
SportingIt is instantly obvious that this is an uncompromisingly sporting machine. The skinny rubber on the 18-in alloys let you know that a bumpy ride may be in prospect.
The door swings open to reveal black Recaro seats that hold you in a rock-solid grip, no matter what the G-forces on cornering. Turn the key, gun that growly lump and select the first of the six gears in the close-ratio box and prepare to be catapulted.
The power delivery really is that impressive. Take an elderly auntie for a spin and the acceleration may induce a fit of the vapours. But putting all that power down on the road via the front wheels takes some judgement.
No amount of electronic intervention is going to prevent those wheels scrabbling on less than perfect road surfaces and with injudicious use of the right foot. Switch off such gizmos by going into Sport mode and you really need to be sure that your skills are equal to the car’s capabilities.
But, given a clear smooth road and the assistance of ESP, it is possible to pile on all the VXR’s power without the thing torque steering all over the road.
But this car has low-down grunt too. As an exercise in skinflintery, I tried to get petrol consumption down as low as possible on my evening commute.
Turbo
Changing up early and trying to keep the turbo out of the equation, the VXR could be driven smoothly, though it does feel like a racehorse being asked to walk.
It goes round corners like a Scalextric car, as you would expect of a car whose suspension was fettled with the help of Lotus. The flipside of such stiffness is a firm-to-brutal ride. The massive blue brake callipers make this the kind of car which would stop on a sixpence; the ride is such that you could then run over it and tell whether it was heads or tails. You feel just about every wrinkle in the road.
Downsides: thick pillars mean you must be vigilant for possible blind spots, and I’m yet to be completely happy with Vauxhall’s indicators, which don’t ‘click’ on.
All in all, though, this is a car that will accommodate the weekly shop, keep up with some pretty illustrious competition yet cost about the same as one of the fancier Vectra diesels.
They told the boffins to come up with a car which would be equally responsive on motorways or twisty roads, rewarding in the handling department for the nutter (my word) and the "conservative" driver (their word), and offering "serious engine power" but a wide torque range.
In other words, a car that would be cherished as much by the bloke in the flat cap watching the mpg as the tearaway in the backwards baseball cap addicted to mph. Remarkably, they have managed it.
This is a car which does everything well. Where its rival, the Astra VXR, is a dedicated and uncompromising hot hatch, the Focus ST is an all-purpose vehicle that just happens to go like the clappers when you hit the loud pedal.
Recaro
Like the Astra, you are treated to Recaro seats, but unlike the VXR you won't sustain a hernia heaving yourself in and out of them. You feel as if you are sitting much higher in the Ford, and the all-round visibility is better. The ride is much softer too, despite the ST also boasting low profile tyres. So although the handling is undoubtedly sporting, you do not get the usual downside of discomfort on the patched-up, potholed roads of the UK.
The power plant is intriguing - a five-in-line 2.5i. The traditionalist in me says an odd number of cylinders is just plain wrong, and then I remembered that my own cherished Triumph Tiger is equally odd-potted with three.
The Focus ST's 222bhp power plant is a remarkably sophisticated lump, for when you are trickling through urban traffic, it is as easy to live with as a 1.6.
The clutch is light and the gearbox as comfortingly glitch free as you would expect of a Ford.
Give it a little right foot, though, and the turbo gauge, set in a cheeky little cowling atop the dash, swings to the right and a primeval growl is emitted. It is an engine note so intoxicating that you find yourself giving it a dab of gas just to hear it.
On paper, there is little to choose between this and the Astra VXR, but the Focus's acceleration does not seem quite as head snapping. When you are talking in terms of sub-seven-sec 0-60mph times, however, such differences do not much matter in the real world.
Awe
And, in the real world, it is the Focus ST that you would probably choose for the money. It is not the more awe-inspiring car either to look at or to use in anger.
The Focus looks slightly less full-on than the Astra, though there is more than enough in the way of styling cues to let you know this is a fast Ford (the orange colour option fair screams its sporting intentions).
The Astra is perhaps the car for the real enthusiast driver. It goes like stink, corners as if on rails and has enough stopping power to tear your face off. But most of us do not spend every driving mile on snaking A roads.
We trundle along choked urban routes, with only occasional forays on to tarmac untroubled by speed cameras and other cars.
And in this mixed environment, the Focus ST is by far the easiest hot hatch to live with. It does everything sublimely well - a quality of which old Henry would no doubt have approved.
What do you think? Have your say
