Ford Focus RS

You could expect to see Ringo Starr behind the wheel of a Lotus Cortina. Or

Mick Jagger in a GT40. But during the ’80s and ’90s you couldn’t

imagine Bono in a Sapphire or Madonna in a Probe…

Ford needs to be cool again, something it is trying very hard to do with cars

such as the reborn GT (40), new Mustang, and this, the Focus RS. The best Fords

have always been the fast ones.

The Focus RS is certainly fast. And very cool. There’s not much chance

of mistaking this for a common variety Focus. First cue: a significantly wider

track (65 mm front and rear), giving it a hunkered stance. The 18-inch Michelin

Pilots lurk under widened wheelarches that bulge like flexing biceps. And, with

its meshed front airdam, it looks like it could bite chunks out of anything

in its way – an Impreza WRX, perhaps – and spit it out sideways through

the vertical side-gills. Yes, it looks menacing. But it is the mechanical package

underneath that gets enthusiasts excited.

Ford says 70 per cent of the basic Focus components have been re-engineered

or redesigned for the RS. The springs are shorter, it gets Sachs racing dampers,

stronger suspension with tuned bushes and strut mounts, uprated driveshafs,

tweaked steering, and thicker anti-roll bars front and rear. Stopping power

is provided by Brembo 325 mm ventilated front discs and 280 mm solid rear discs.

But the most important piece of the hardware in the RS’s makeup is a

Quaife-developed torque-sensing differential. It is the development of this

diff – and cracking exhaust manifolds, apparently – that led to the

RS’s long gestation period. The diff is labelled “smart”

because it attempts to spread the Focus’s impressive 310 N.m of torque

smoothly between the driven wheels rather than flicking it from one to the other,

as some LSDs used to do. The aim is to keep the RS’s wheels pointing

in the right direction and kill understeer. It is this diff that characterises

the RS driving experience more than anything else. But more about that later…

Power comes from a Garrett turbocharged four-cylinder 2,0-litre engine that

develops 158 kW at 5 500 r/min and 310 N.m of torque at 3 500. As a result of

this high torque figure, turbo boost is limited in first and second gears –

because the RS has no traction control. One has to pity a gearbox that has to

handle all that power, so Ford’s familiar MTX75 five-speeder has been

significantly strengthened to handle the expected abuse. The RS also gets an

AP-racing clutch. That then, is the mechanical package for you.

ehind the wheel, the RS is quite obviously a serious performance car. You sit

in heavily bolstered black and blue Sparco bucket seats. The pedals are silver

and black. The aluminium-look handbrake grip could be the heavy-duty handle

of some large machine. And the gearlever sits on carbon fibre trim that looks

quite convincing.

here’s a green starter button on the centre console and, since the RS

is a very limited volume car that has just gone out of production, every car’s

factory number is displayed proudly next to the gearlever. The rest is stock

Focus with all the mod cons you’d expect.

It may fancy itself as a quasi racing car, but you still have to turn the key

before thumbing the green button. At which point the RS bursts into life with

a noise that, though not very distinctive, is certainly loud enough. The ride

is very firm, but not nearly as hard as some overseas magazines have stated,

with the RS proving quite a comfortable cruiser on the way to our test strip,

where it was time to get serious.

With no traction control and stability systems to deactivate, the RS is tricky

to get off the line without spinning away all its ability. In the end, around

3 000 revs and careful feeding in of the throttle worked the best, but the tyres

always struggled for grip. There’s a slight period of lag before the

turbocharger starts working its magic, and the resultant forward motion pushes

driver and co-pilot deep into their Sparcos. With the tacho needle approaching

6 000 an orange light illuminates to remind the driver to shift up. We hold

on a little longer before making the shift, and again the tyres break traction,

the noise this time accompanied by a wince-inducing whack as the drivetrain

protests the abuse. After plenty of experimentation we achieved a best 0-100

km/h time of 7,35 seconds, down on the claimed figures, but expected.

More impressive, though, is the car’s in-gear urge, which shames even

Subaru’s highly rated Impreza WRX. Only two seconds are needed to get

from 80 km/h to 100 in third gear. In addition, we achieved an impressive top

speed of 225 km/h and a 27,94 second kilometre sprint time.

The Brembo brakes needed a run or two to heat up properly, recording a worst

stop of 3,13 seconds in the 100-0 km/h emergency braking test, and a superb

best time of 2,68 seconds.

The Focus’s multilink rear suspension has long been regarded as among

the best in the business. The car’s body is also amongst the most torsionally

rigid. So Ford certainly had the basics right for a fire-breathing hot hatch.

Still, the decision was made to give the job of developing the RS to Ford’s

Special Vehicle Engineering (SVE) department. Besides the previously mentioned

changes, SVE increased the wheels’ negative camber angles by 1,5 degrees front

and rear.

And now for that limited slip diff… Find a smooth twisty road – easier

said than done, these days – and the RS is in its element. The steering

is fast, accurate and front-end grip phenomenal, almost as if the car has four-wheel

drive… and electronic stability control. It is truly electrifying in

these conditions – keep the engine spinning out around 4 000 revs and the

thrust out of corners makes it one of the fastest point-to-pointers.

Unfortunately, not all roads are topped with racing-circuit smooth blacktop.

Bumpy surfaces or camber changes confuse the diff to such an extent that, should

you encounter such conditions at the exit of a tight corner, you need to be

both awake and have rather strong arms to keep the steering wheel pointing in

the right direction. What it would be like in the wet is easy to imagine…

and scary. Still, the RS is a car that rewards the dedicated driver with a breathlessly

entertaining experience. Learn its ways and you can counter most of its vices.

It’s not perfect, but what it does well, it does really well…