Friday 4th July 2008

Production Focus RS Breaks Cover

More details and pictures of 300bhp Ford Focus RS

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The first official pictures of the final production version of the Focus RS have been released. The 300bhp front-wheel drive Focus is finished in a special bright green paint with inlaid metallic flake, which Ford says is a modern interpretation of the 1970s Le Mans Green of the Escort RS1600 era.

The RS will go on sale in early 2009 but will preview to the public on July 22 at the 2008 London International Motor Show. The car features wider wheel arches and a 40mm wider track and an innovative front suspension system curiously named ‘RevoKnuckle’.

This is designed to reduce unwanted steering disturbance and torque steer, which plagued the previous Focus RS, and it works in conjunction with a Quaife Automatic Torque Biasing limited-slip differential.

Jost Capito, Ford of Europe’s Vehicle Line Director for Performance Vehicles, said: ‘The Ford Focus is an excellent base for a high performance car – agile, responsive and stable,’ said Capito. We studied at length how best to enhance these qualities for a high performance model.  

'Our work has shown clearly that our approach in combining a tuned RevoKnuckle with the Quaife differential is an ideal solution for a high performance front-wheel-drive road car like Focus RS. As you would expect, we gave all-wheel-drive careful consideration, but by combining and tuning these elements and learning from Ford’s expertise in industry-leading handling, we have managed to eliminate the weight of AWD from the car and still have been able to target a class-leading balance of traction, handling and performance.

'The result is a lightweight set-up, that will deliver the right blend of traction and razor sharp controllability – in a way no one would have expected from front-wheel-drive, and we believe we have made the right choice.’

There are also stronger, longer driveshafts, revised springs and dampers and a thicker, longer rear anti-roll bar. A special version of Ford’s ESP system has also been developed for Focus RS which has a full de-activation option for enthusiast drivers and especially for track use. 

‘We are refining all the handling characteristics of Focus RS without ESP, to hone its natural responses, rather than use ESP to help its handling. In Focus RS, ESP is a pure safety device,’ added Capito. The RS features a more powerful version of the Duratec 2.5-litre 5-cylinder engine found in the ST but it has unique camshafts, a revised cylinder head and gasket and revised intake and exhaust manifold system for the car. Ford is promising a 0-60mph time of under six seconds.

Inside there are Recaros centre console is finished in a stylish gloss, carbon-look trim and metallic highlights abound, from air vents, door grab handles, switchgear and gearshift surround. Ford has even given the rear seats higher side bolsters to keep passengers in place.

The London show car previews the design intent for a final production vehicle, though as development work continues, some final details may change before volume production begins.

 

[Rawwr]

That's going to look massively aggressive in black.

[Rawwr]

Driving an S3 feels almost exactly like gently sliding into a coma. Dull, unimaginative and with as much sense of feedback as groping a pair of tits with boxing gloves on.

[Rawwr]

The thing is, any moose-brained buffoon can drive an Evo quickly - it's about as tricky as putting on a hat - and whilst I think I'll always favour an MR layout, there are plenty of FF cars which, in my experience at least, have proved more of a challenging and interesting drive.

It's not to say the Evo is a bad car, far from it, it's just all a little too easy. If there was a massively long and twisty B-road covered in snow, gravel and miscellaneous animal droppings and I needed to get to the other end of it in a hurry, I'd take the Evo. If I wanted to have a pleasurable, challenging drive which would require me to think about what I was doing, I'd have to think long and hard about which vehicle would make me smile the most but I sincerely doubt it'd have an [A|4]WD drivetrain.