Taking a rally car around Dublin in rush hour is a humbling experience for Kilian Doyle. Taking it through the Wicklow hills is plain terrifying
HAVE YOU ever borrowed something you really didn't want to return? A lawnmower, a book, a €100 note? Or how about a Ford Fiesta ST bioethanol-fuelled rally car?
The folks at Ford, brave souls that they are, loaned me one last week. They were lucky, in more ways than one, to get it back. They thought I'd like to drive it around Dublin. Apparently, it's every boyracer's dream to borrow a rally car and swan about town in it.
Not being a boyracer, I have no such aspirations. Truth is, I'm a bit of a shrinking violet. Getting pointed at by everyone from grubby schoolboys to elderly dowagers as I negotiate rush-hour traffic is not exactly my idea of fun.
However, I ventured forth in the ST nonetheless. Bad mistake. It's hard to drive while hiding your face in your hands.
As well as sporting multiple logos, lascivious bulges and go-faster stripes, its exhaust rumbles like a Chinese steelworks. Garish? That's like calling Genghis Khan a tad unruly.
It attracted an inordinate number of stares, many admiring, many disparaging, many bewildered. Frankly, I would have got less attention had I been astride a sabre-toothed tiger
Worse than my shame, though, was my fear. The ST's bucket seats meant I was lower than a Dachshund's knees. Trucks and SUVs loomed over me in Godzilla-esque poses. In addition, the roll cage made seeing out an exercise in contortionism. But once I got used to it, the ST became surprisingly easy to negotiate through traffic. The gearbox engaged with a reassuring clunk and the brakes would have stopped a bungalow rolling down a cliff. The less I cared about the oglers and glarers, the more I grew to like the ST. Anyway, this car wasn't designed for cities, so it was off to the hills.
I'd previously driven the regular 2.0-litre, 148bhp Fiesta ST, and more than enjoyed it. But the rally version is a different beast. For a start, it's stripped bare, with no creature comforts. No soundproofing. No rear-view mirror. Nothing. You can't even lock the doors.
It's also left-hand-drive. It has no parking brake, so you struggle to do hillstarts, and you can't leave it on a slope. But then, on the open road, who cares?
The Wicklow Mountains were a dank, wet, dreary place the day the ST and I graced them with our presence. Driving a left-hooker meant overtaking on roads barely wider than a donkey's hips was almost impossible. The ST grumbled and moaned under me, its frustration second only to mine.
Eventually, an open, empty stretch of road loomed ahead. I made no attempt to test the limits of what the ST can do. For a start, this was a public highway. Secondly, I am under no illusions about my meagre driving talents. I've quaked in the passenger seat as a professional World Rally Championship driver flung his car and my intestines around Sligo - so I know full well that the skill required is beyond that of mere mortals. Still, swallowing my fear, I hoofed it. The ST revved itself into a frenzy and, with what I swear was a laugh, tore off down the road.
It accelerated so hard I had to clench my jaw to stop my teeth flying down my throat. I clung on for dear life, grinning like a Chesire cat in a tent full of nitrous oxide. My mirth soon faded. Coming into the apex of a lefthander, the nearside front wheel hit a pothole and yanked the steering wheel from my white-knuckled grip, nearly snapping my wrists.
Disaster beckoned. My heart popped out of my mouth and sought sanctuary under the dashboard as my backside kissed me goodbye.
Somehow, I regained control, manhandled the ST around the bend and avoided ditching it by inches. The blood drained from my face.
Seconds later, fog as thick as mashed potatoes descended on the Sally Gap. Though a devout atheist, I took this as a sign that somebody was trying to put manners on me. Sébastien Loeb need lose no sleep.
I tootled home with my tail between my legs. The engine note took on a different tone, mocking me, which made me love it all the more.
When it came time to return the ST, I was distraught. A million excuses flew around my skull, but none were plausible enough, so back it went.
Unharmed, it was sent to Newry to compete in the latest leg of the Ford Fiesta Sporting Trophy, a rally series for STs running on Maxol's E85 bioethanol, which is derived from cow's milk by-products.
You can take it from me - the cars really moo-ve. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
The idea behind the trophy is to promote the concept of environmentally-friendly motorsport. By powering rally cars with bioethanol, Ford and Maxol are trying to push flexi-fuels as a viable green alternative to petrol or diesel.
I'm a bit circumspect about biofuels. Millions of acres of rainforests are being cleared for fuel-crops. Food production is being affected. Humans and wildlife are suffering. And less trees means more greenhouse gases. Thankfully, being cow-powered, the only forest the ST puts at risk was the one I drove it through.
Of course, there's a catch. For Ireland to become self-sufficient in milk-based bioethanol, we'll need more cows. They already produce more greenhouse gases than all transport combined. Another catch is that while biofuels produce less emissions, they deliver slightly worse fuel economy than petrol.
However, there is hope. For example, a fledgling company called Coskata is currently making waves in the US with its plans to produce cheap biofuels from waste such as old tyres, crop residue, plastic bottles and even sewage.
Coskata, which is supported by General Motors, says it can turn biomass into carbon monoxide and hydrogen before adding patented strains of voracious bacteria to transform it into ethanol.
The bioreactors can be powered by municipal waste and sited in major urban centres, thus reducing landfill and fuel transportation costs in one fell swoop.
If interests such as Coskata, Maxol and motorsport - where all the best engineering minds are already working on motoring innovation - can put their collective brains to work on improving production of biofuels and the performance and efficiency of the engines that use them, perhaps we could all be driving cracking biofuelled machines like the Fiesta ST with a clear conscience for decades to come.