One Ford, was it? Wasn’t part of the plan to offer the same cars across the globe? Yeah, about that.

Obviously, Ford cannot provide identical cars to all markets around the world, for little things like differing crash and safety regulations for example, but you’d think that certain cosmetic parts would be shared, right?

Take a bumper for instance. Aside from minor things like provisions for fitting tow hooks or washer jets (i.e. with FoST front bumpers, which have extra cutouts for these), you’d think that the basic pieces would be the same and therefore, parts that fit one should fit the other. Well, we’d hoped for that as well.

Following his OE rear diffuser and grille getting damaged, Mario decided that instead of spending the money to keep the car as it was he’d instead take the chance to upgrade with an aftermarket piece. Solid logic. As such, he ordered a Triple R diffuser and recently (after a delay due to it unfortunately being out of stock) it arrived. I popped by his work one evening so that we could fit it, but that didn’t work out.

This was how I found Sriracha when I arrived (stupid red lights kept me tied up). Amusingly, since Mario had only bothered to jack up the rear of the car his Vega Motorworks splitter was slightly pressed against the ground but that sucker is so solid there were no worries there. Anyway, he had already gone ahead and removed the OE rear grille in preparation for fitting the TRC unit (which replaces both the grille and diffuser), and that’s when he discovered the hurdle.

In a nutshell, the North American FiST bumper is the male component with the grille (to which the painted diffuser mounts) being the female piece. And as we now know, in the UK it’s apparently the opposite; meaning that we had a diffuser that was meant to clip into a bumper, and a bumper that was meant to clip into a diffuser. Now you can see what the issue is…

This leaves us with the small challenge of finding a way to adapt the North American bumper to accept the TRC piece, or having to come up with another solution to fix the rear of Sriracha. Before you ask, yes we have priced out a replacement OEM diffuser and grille but they’re not exactly cheap and they’re, well, stock. If we can upgrade and make Sriracha more unique at the same time as “fixing” it, that’s what we want to do! (Incidentally it’s also worth noting that only after we discovered this, was TRC’s website updated to say the part won’t fit North American cars)

We’ve already looked into cutting slots into the rear bumper to allow the TRC diffuser to clip into it but that’s looking like it may not work out as intended. I’m still trying to think of another idea (and may have something) but for the time being the little ST is simply rocking a bare back end as it runs around without the diffuser or grille.

We can assure you that Sriracha will look different for Sunday School, but with the diffuser dilemma (and other pieces still not here yet) the question now is: how much different?

-Bill