Ford Focus RS Hatchback

Ford’s first real RS model was the 1970 Escort AVO RS1600 twin cam, assembled at the company’s former research center at Averley in East London (hence the AVO moniker). These rally specials were built, as former Ford PR rep Walter Hayes used to say, “to win on Sunday and sell on Monday.” As road cars they were sensational, if fragile and cripplingly expensive to run.

Under The Hood

The 2016 Ford Focus RS has a 2.3-liter turbo four-cylinder and an all-new Honeywell twin-scroll turbocharger breathing through an intercooler. It has variable cam timing and the direct fuel injection is paired with a six-speed manual transmission. Brakes are by Brembo, with massive front monoblock calipers, the biggest they can fit inside the standard 18-inch wheels. The raw data is 345hp at 6,000 rpm, up to 347 lb-ft of torque on overboost at 2,000 rpm. The top speed is 165 miles per hour, with 0-62 mph coming up in 4.7 seconds.

Driving Modes

There are four driver modes: Normal, Sport, Track, and Drift. Each successively hardens the responses of the steering, throttle, damping, all-wheel-drive system, stability control, and exhaust noise. Drift softens the steering and damping, but if you set the controls to the drift setting every day, the systems remember and politely asks you to change the differential lubricant at shorter intervals.

Out on the road, dial in Sport and the exhaust adopts a rasping sound and the turbo ensures a seamless charge all the way to the red line just beyond 6,500 rpm. The sound is as artificially enhanced as the engine’s power output, but this function is undeniably quick and effective. Throttle response is slightly delayed, but the surge of torque is so magnificent that you barely need to downshift. If you treat the throttle lightly, you’ll see the right side of 25 mpg.

There’s launch control, which optimizes the all-wheel drive, torque delivery, traction systems, and damping to give the fastest getaway. It feels a little antiseptic to be simply flooring the throttle and side stepping the clutch instead of balancing the two in a virtuoso display of driving skill, but it works.

Torque vectoring through that GKN axle and the brakes means that Ford has dropped the ST model’s variable ratio steering rack for a fixed-ratio faster rack, which it claims gives greater feel and sensitivity. Through a series of long bends the RS flows beautifully and feels gorgeous, but tighter corners demand precision and determination to turn in accurately. That steering feels slightly woolly and lacks the finesse of RS models of yore, but it’s fast and mostly accurate, with a meaty weighting.

Out on the track on even stickier optional Michelin Cup tires, the RS is still as fast and so adjustable and well mannered. While it understeers slightly, the way it barrels out of a corner is something that its German rivals would struggle to match. Almost as remarkable are the progressive and ultra-powerful brakes that throw you against the seatbelts time after time.

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Tags: Focus RS, Performance Ford
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