Wheels
The new Ford Focus is £25k of pure power
Hatch Trick
WORDS | STEPHEN WORTHY
IF YOU DECIDE to splash out £25,000 (oh, ok £5 short of that) and buy the new Ford Focus RS, you are making more than a dent in your bank balance. You are making a statement. Certainly to those who know anything about cars.
Its bulging, muscular profile won’t be to everyone’s liking, but this is one and a half tons of pure driving enjoyment, for less than half the price of a BMW M3. What makes the RS stand out, not only among other hot hatches but many sports cars too, is how Ford has managed to keep its enormous reserves of power in check.
On paper, feeding 301bhp through the front wheels looks ludicrous. But Ford has developed a system called RevoKnuckle, which sounds like a WWE wrestler but is, in fact, a way of stopping all that power throwing the steering into spasms when you floor it.
That 301bhp figure will probably have already alerted you to the fact that the RS is a bit brutal. You won’t need in-car hi-fi, as the RS plays its own soundtrack. We were serenaded by turbo whistles and the rasping, throaty roar of the 2.5-litre engine – which nails a 0-62mph time of 5.9 seconds and a top speed of 164mph. This is a car that is every bit as at home on the track as on the daily commute.
The Focus RS is not subtle. It’s not conventionally handsome either. But with the car industry still struggling with a sales meltdown, it’s proof that you’re still allowed to have fun on four wheels.
