Have you read his Top Gear Mag report? Perhaps not the case.

This car is a cost driven exercise which fits at the top of a certain niche in the market i.e. Hot hatches - which unless you include the BMW 135i & Audi S3 Hatch are all FWD. Those and the fourth coming Golf R20 are aimed at a separate niche and although they are compared I for one dont think it is a level comparison...

Not only have Ford fell behind in the 4 wheel drive performance vehicle sector the current state of the global economy has driven a vehicle to be built which is a hybrid of parts from what other brands they own i.e. the Volvo derived engine.

If the car were to be 4WD what conponents would they use? The fact remains if it were 4WD the conponents would be shared from a sister company such as Jaguar or Volvo and it would have been more likely AWD with a haldex based set up for mass production and cost.

This is a high end hot hatch and I am glad it is FWD...

Then again I am biased as I will be picking mine up within the next two weeks...