The Ford Focus RS: The Blue Oval’s best is a performance car for the people

Don’t let the familiar name fool you—the new Ford Focus RS is no mere shopping hatchback. Behind that gaping front grill is a turbocharged 2.3L engine with 350hp (261kW) and 350lb-ft (475Nm) torque vectored to the road via all four wheels. The wheel arches are blistered. There’s a great big wing at the back; there’s a diffuser, too. And if that doesn’t already sound like a very special Focus, the new RS even has a “Drift” mode.

Despite all the fancy carbon fiber supercars Cars Technica spends time with, I’d been looking forward to getting behind the wheel of this vehicle more than just about any other. From auto shows to race weekends to other Ford track events, the car has taunted me, sitting static but resplendent in that eye-catching Nitrous Blue paint. Our first drive was originally slated for July, but scheduling conflicts at the Blue Oval saw that opportunity bumped into late August. That delay is now a minor blip; the RS was more than worth the wait.

Say hello to the third-generation Ford Focus RS. This is the best hot hatch Ford has ever built.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Say hello to the third-generation Ford Focus RS. This is the best hot hatch Ford has ever built. Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

On top of 350hp and all-wheel drive, you still get the practicality of a five-door hatchback.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

On top of 350hp and all-wheel drive, you still get the practicality of a five-door hatchback. Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

If the eye-searing (and cop-attracting) Nitrous Blue paint is too much, it also comes in black, white, and metallic gray.

If the eye-searing (and cop-attracting) Nitrous Blue paint is too much, it also comes in black, white, and metallic gray.

On top of 350hp and all-wheel drive, you still get the practicality of a five-door hatchback. Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

If the eye-searing (and cop-attracting) Nitrous Blue paint is too much, it also comes in black, white, and metallic gray.

The Focus RS’ cabin is dark but well-designed. All the bits you touch have a quality feel. You might need to find a 2017 model in order to get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, however.

Under the hood is a 2.3L turbocharged EcoBoost four-cylinder engine, 350hp, 350lb-ft, and a marvelous exhaust note.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Michelin’s extremely sticky Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires are an option—if you plan to track it a lot, you’ll want these. And there’s also a winter tire option, which is good because even the standard Pilot Super Sports are absolutely hopeless once the temperature drops below freezing.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Yes, you get a boost gauge.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

The magic letters.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

The Focus RS’ body has plenty of cooling scoops for the intercooler and radiators. It also cuts drag and reduces lift.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

That big ol’ rear diffuser.

There’s those magic letters again. The Recaro seats are very grippy and hold you in place even when Ben Collins (yep, formerly The Stig) has the car going sideways.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

It’s still a Focus, so there’s plenty of trunk space. You could fit many Ron Amadeos in the back.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Getting acquainted with Drift Mode.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Thankfully, we didn’t have to pay for any of the tires!

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

What’s better than a Focus RS? Two Focus RSes!

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Ben Collins is a jolly nice chap, and he even has a new book out, called How to Drive.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

I think I enjoyed this car more than any other we’ve tested in the last 12 months—McLarens, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis included.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Like fighter pilots, (wannabe) racing drivers also talk with their hands. I’m trying to explain how the torque vectoring induces yaw to help you corner.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Damn, that wasn’t supposed to happen.

Jonathan Gitlin

Are there many more evocative letters one could stick on a car to let the cognoscenti know something special was going on? Spy “RS” on a Renault, Porsche, Audi, or Ford, and you know the vehicle you’re looking at has been breathed upon by that company’s raciest engineers. The fat will have been removed, the suspension made track-ready. Tires will be wider, stickier, and have more power to put down. (Only Chevrolet lets the side down by glueing those letters to a quite pedestrian Camaro.)

At Ford RS stands for Rallye Sport, and it’s a name that goes back a long way. Back in the day, one of the best ways for a car company to imbue an everyday shopping car with some pizzazz was to take it racing. But motorsports demands more than the school run; wider tires, aerodynamic appendages, altered suspension pickup points, and so on. This was permissible with the proviso that a certain number of road cars sold to the general public were so equipped, creating the homologation special. And Ford’s homologation cars were quite special.

Picking a favorite is probably a function of one’s age. And coming of age in the early 1990s, my choice would be the Escort RS Cosworth. (Those a few years older might get misty eyed at the mention of an RS500 or RS200.) While the Focus RS isn’t really a homologation special, it’s this lineage that the Focus RS hails from. There are so many legendary ancestors in the family tree that the expectations are sky-high before anyone gets as far as pushing the car’s starter button. At least, that’s the plan. For all of Ford’s RS hits, there have been misses. Take the Mk 4 Escort RS2000, which was barely worth the name. Or the first generation Focus RS, which promised so much and disappointed so many. But we gave the game away in that opening paragraph—the new Focus RS landed dead-center in a bright blue bullseye.

While it’s the third generation Focus to wear the RS badge, it’s the first to cross the Atlantic. That’s a testament to changes in the prevailing tastes of American car buyers. We can probably attribute that to video games like Gran Turismo, as well as the success of Subaru’s WRX and Mitsubishi’s Evo on these shores. But fans of traditional US muscle take note—if quarter miles and trap times are your thing, look elsewhere, for there are better vehicles to take to the drag strip. This car is instead about going around corners as rapidly as possible—often sideways—and putting a smile on your face while doing so.

Let’s talk tech

The 2.3L EcoBoost four-cylinder engine is closely related to the engine found in the current Mustang, but it adds a low-inertia twin-scroll turbocharger, bigger compressor, and less restrictive exhausts. There’s only one choice of gearbox, and that’s a six-speed manual—no flappy paddles or dual clutch boxes here despite the potential for faster lap times. As long as the front tires have sufficient grip, the Focus RS will send them all its torque, but up to 70 percent can be diverted to the rear wheels (and 100 percent of that to just one rear wheel should it deem that appropriate).

Unlike more conventional all-wheel drive setups, there’s no center differential; the three-piece propshaft that runs to the rear drive unit is always turning. Instead, each rear wheel is connected to this unit via an electronically controlled wet clutch. Every hundredth of a second the Focus RS’ electronic brain takes stock, judging how to best distribute the available torque back-to-front and side-to-side. That gives the system a particular advantage over a mechanical limited slip differential: torque vectoring.

In a corner, the car will bias the torque at the rear to the outside wheel in conjunction with braking the inside front wheel. This induces an extra yaw motion above and beyond what’s already determined by the suspension geometry, steering input, and slip angle. Understeer becomes a thing of the past, something I rapidly discovered on track at Monticello Motor Club. It’s particularly evident in tighter corners, where you can turn in and get on the power much sooner than seems natural.

Now, as you might expect for a car with electronics controlling the drivetrain, there are different modes to choose from. The throttle remaps, getting more linear as you progress from Normal through Sport to Track. The torque vectoring becomes more aggressive, traction and stability control becomes more permissive, and the (conventional, valved) dampers increase dampening rate (these also have a bumpy setting that can be toggled independently, a la Ferrari).

While we’re on the topic, body control is particularly good, as befits the reputation of Ford Europe (where most of the chassis tuning took place). In fact, the cars have been brought over to the US with no changes to suspension setup. The ride is not quite limo-smooth—you’ll feel expansion gaps and potholes—but it’s not back-breaking in Normal, and even on track (and in Track) you can ride the rumble strips without immediately making a detour to the local osteopath. Monticello’s track includes a rather interesting left-right combo over a crest, and the car never felt unsettled even when using more of the hefty curbs than otherwise necessary.

A byproduct of all that electronic tuning is the fourth drive mode, the one that anybody with a passing interest in this car probably already knows about. That’s right, drift mode. Conceptually, it’s quite easy to see how Ford arrived at the idea. After all, the car knows its slip angle, steering input, yaw rate, and so on, and it’s already programmed to combine that data to vector torque—why not go one step further and add a little electronic hooligan into the mix?

Lap lessons

Ford helpfully set up an area at Monticello for us to try out Drift Mode. While it wasn’t quite as effortless as scribing donuts in snowy parking lots in my Saaburu, some of that can be ascribed to the blisteringly hot temperatures and a skid pan that by mid-afternoon was well-covered in rubber that used to belong to several sets of Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires. But the principle is simple: start driving around in a constant radius circle, neither under- nor oversteering. Then give the loud pedal an unsubtle boot, light up yet another set of Super Sports, and (try to) balance the car with your right foot.

Perhaps not content to leave demonstrations just up to a motley crew of automotive scribblers, former Stig and all-around good bloke Ben Collins was also on hand to give hot laps in both Track and Drift modes to highlight the differences. As you’ll see in the video below, he really is quite a talent behind the wheel.

While Drift Mode will garner headlines and column inches, like Launch Control it’s a party trick that probably won’t get exercised that often in the real world. It’s fun but inappropriate for public roads and tortuous to tires.

Speaking of tires, with the Focus RS you’ve got the choice between two of Michelin’s finest. For road use (or drifting), there’s the default Pilot Super Sport. Planning to spend time at the track in your new Focus RS? In that case you’ll want the optional Pilot Sport Cup 2s, almost devoid of tread but endowed with preternatural levels of dry grip.

Michelin has been working closely with Ford Performance, the division responsible for the Focus RS (as well as the Shelby GT350 and Ford GT). And like those cars the Super Sports and Sport Cup 2s might share a name with the tires found on Corvettes or Shelbys, but in each case they’re variants specifically developed for each car. Here in the Focus RS the tires are interchangeable front to rear, something you wouldn’t do with a rear-wheel drive ‘Vette or GT350, along with slightly softer sidewalls. (A Michelin engineer on hand described the standard tire you might find at Costco or Tire Rack as level one, the Focus RS’ bespoke version as level 2, and those on the GT350 or Corvette as level three or even four.)

It sounds like you really like this car

As good as the RS is on back roads and tracks, at the end of the day there’s a Ford Focus underneath all the clever gubbins. Consequently, that means space for five plus a capacious trunk that gets even bigger with the rear seats folded flat. Practicality together with performance will cost more than a cooking Focus, but with prices starting at $36,120/£31,000, it’s a bargain up against more exotic alternatives. Fuel economy isn’t ghastly either—we managed about 18mpg combined driving from Manhattan to Monticello and back again, and the official numbers are 19mpg city and 25mpg highway.