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When considered against the wait we’ve already gone through for an RS-fettled Ford product in the U.S.—an eternity, by our estimates—the time remaining until the new Ford Focus RS arrives on our shores is practically nothing. And we’ll be able to tell you how the new Ford Focus RS drives in January. But to tide us over until then, we’ve been given the full technical rundown on this eagerly anticipated, 350-hp all-wheel-drive megahatch. And that’s “full” as in “effectively total”; if there’s anything missing it was because we didn’t ask, not because the company wasn’t willing to tell us.
All of this took place, somewhat improbably, in Belgium. As well as being the home to various fictional characters and most of the world’s jokes about waffles, this corner of Europe is also home to Ford’s principal European test track, which is located near a small town called Lommel. (A site that was apparently chosen originally as being almost equidistant between Ford’s factories in Cologne and Genk; the Saarlouis plant in Germany where all RS Focuses will be built is three hours away.) Journalists don’t get invited here very often, for obvious reasons, but today’s itinerary includes both the full technical briefing and a chance to experience the RS from the passenger seat over a variety of Lommel’s purpose-built tracks.
Like its predecessors, this Focus RS was primarily engineered in Europe. But unlike them it will be sold around the world, including in the U.S., where the prospect of so much performance—and the much-vaunted “drift mode”—being sold for just $36,645 has created something close to drooling anticipation. The man in charge of the program is an American, Tyrone Johnson, a 30-year company veteran who has spent the last two decades in Europe and is now Ford Performance’s vehicle engineering manager. He seems to have been the ideal choice to handle both the engineering and political complexities of creating such an exotic beast.
Johnson confirms that the original plan was for this Focus RS, like the two previous versions, to be front-wheel driven. “I wasn’t interested in doing another front-wheel-drive car with high output,” he says. “We’d done that and it had worked reasonably well, but I was determined that this one would be different.”
The opportunity to do something radically different came from the fact that the current Focus still is built on the C1 platform that Ford engineered for its predecessor, back when the company was best buddies with both Mazda and Volvo. Volvo has produced all-wheel-driven versions of its own C1 cars, as has Ford with the Escape crossover, meaning that it’s possible to run a driveshaft down the length of the car and that Ford already produces a subframe for a powered rear axle.
But Johnson didn’t want to do the RS with a conventional Haldex-style system. “They’re good in a straight line, but they give handling that is quite boring,” he says. So he and his team turned instead to the clever “Twinster” system pioneered by British transmission company GKN. Like Haldex, this uses a permanently rotating driveshaft to take power to the rear axle, but this setup has separate electronically controlled clutches for both rear wheels. Meaning it can both replicate a limited-slip differential and also allow full torque vectoring across the rear axle. Other manufacturers are already using it—Land Rover has it in the top-spec Evoque—but Ford’s application uses a smaller housing and unique software. Up to 70 percent of torque can be sent to the rear end, and all of this can be sent to either one side or the other, with the clutches able to lock in just 0.06 second. This gives the RS its much-vaunted “drift mode” ability, directing torque to the outside rear wheel to create on-power breakaway and then moving it as required to keep the car sliding.
Johnson talks us around the underside of an RS that’s been raised on one of Lommel’s inspection lifts. The rear axle is a neat implementation where the standard subframe has been reinforced with new sections and triangular pieces that brace it onto the chassis rails, an apparently small modification that required prototype crash testing to prove it didn’t compromise the Focus’s safety case. The body shell also has received additional reinforcement including around the rear shock towers. Static torsional stiffness is claimed to be 25 percent better overall than the standard Focus’s, much more so in some key areas. The new rear axle means the loss of the standard car’s well below the cargo area and also the creation of a unique, saddle-shaped fuel tank that sits above the three-piece propshaft. Johnson says the cost of doing this was the biggest single challenge to getting the whole project signed off: “Believe me, this sort of thing isn’t easy to do within the Ford Motor Company.”
The all-wheel-drive system has added about 132 pounds in mass, of which 55 pounds comes from the powered rear axle. Despite the cleverness at the back, the RS sticks with a six-speed manual gearbox as the only transmission option. We have no problems with this, obviously, although it does look to limit the car’s appeal in those large parts of the world where buyers expect their cars to shift for them—and against rivals with either optional or standard automatics, dual-clutch or otherwise. Of course, Ford has precedent on its side, as the company has never built an RS model with anything other than a manual gearbox, and Johnson also says that cost and weight were factors. He also admitted that a dual-clutch version might follow later if there’s sufficient demand.
The RS is powered by a substantially modified and transversely mounted version of the 2.3-liter four-cylinder EcoBoost that we’ve already seen in the Mustang. Peak output sits at 350 horsepower and 325 lb-ft of continuous torque, but an overboost function increases the latter figure to 350 lb-ft for short periods. The engine has a heavily revised twin-scroll turbocharger with a larger compressor housing and a unique airbox. It has high-tensile-strength cast-iron cylinder liners to deal with increased boost pressures, as well as a unique cylinder head. Which, in a fitting connection to the previous Escort and Sierra RS models of the 1980s and 1990s, is cast and machined by Cosworth in the U.K. The exhaust manages without any intermediate mufflers; apparently the back box alone is enough to meet noise regulations on both sides of the Atlantic, helped out by active acoustic flaps. Importantly, the engine has been tuned to rev harder than the Mustang’s tight-feeling powerplant, with the fuel cutoff not arriving until 6900 rpm. (Some of the changes apparently are now being considered for a higher-output version of the pony car.) Johnson is confident that the RS will prove to be quicker around a track than any of its obvious rivals, something we’re definitely not prepared to bet against after experiencing our ride.
The suspension has been beefed up to take advantage of the RS’s increased structural strength. The front springs are 33 percent stiffer than those of the Focus ST, rears 38 percent firmer. Two-stage switchable dampers are fitted as standard, with the firmer Sport mode a massive 40 percent stiffer in bounce and rebound. These will be activated in the Track drive setting but also can be selected through a button mounted on the underside of the turn-signal stalk—a first location-wise, we think. Apparently the harder settings really are designed for use on the smoothest tracks; the car reportedly is faster around the lumpy Nürburgring Nordschleife with the dampers left in their standard mode. The electric power-steering rack comes from a European-market C-Max and has a 13:1 fixed ratio rather than the ST’s variable setup. We were told this was chosen to give more predictable control when the car is traveling sideways.
Buyers will be able to choose between two different Michelin tires: Pilot Super Sports come as standard, but there’s also the option of track-biased Pilot Sport Cup 2s. These are, Johnson says, grippy enough to take two-tenths off the standard zero-to-60-mph time by themselves. There’s also a launch mode to help less mechanically sympathetic owners replicate or at least get close to those times as often as they want to. You won’t be surprised to hear that the brakes are the most powerful ever fitted to a production Focus, with vast 13.7-inch ventilated discs at the front gripped by four-piston monoblock calipers; they are designed to be able to run for 30-minute stints on track without fading. Lightweight forged wheels are an option, saving two pounds of weight per corner.
Our one mild criticism of the RS at this point is its relative lack of visual aggression, certainly when compared with predecessors like the Escort RS Cosworth and its double-deck rear wing. Like all Focus hatchbacks, the RS is available only as a five-door—don’t even dream about a wagon variant—with the front and rear looking only slightly more aggressive than the ST. Johnson says the mission was to create the maximum size of aperture at the front end to help meet the engine’s demands for cooling air; the hexagonal mesh was used for the lowest possible airflow restriction. The U.S. will be denied the option available elsewhere of motorsport-style, shell sports seats at the front, as these can’t accommodate side airbags.
Enough already. We acknowledge that all this statistical foreplay is only serving to emphasize what is missing here; like being sent to fast in the desert with a 40-page illustrated menu for company. You want to know what the Focus RS actually is like to drive. It won’t be long before we can tell you.
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