New Ford Focus RS is an absolute gem of a car that won’t disappoint

By Gerry Murphy

It’s easy to spot the petrol heads when you are driving a car like the new Ford Focus RS. Like Meerkats, their heads pop up from behind the hedges with their eyes out on stalks.

If there are a group of them together, they get giddy and excited to see it coming and chatter amongst themselves, one trying to outdo the others with how much they know about Ford’s latest incarnation.

For last weekend’s Lady Gregory Hotel, Galway Summers Stages Rally, the RS was my ‘working vehicle’ for the day and the week leading up to the event. Groups of guys and gals clambered all over the car, wanting to know the details and what it could do.

Ford had been promising us something really special when they first announced the plans for this car. Others may have been sneaking ahead of them in recent years, but not now. Here is a car that does live up to the hype and leaves all other hot hatchbacks in its slipstream.

As you can guess already, I have been smitten by it and believe this is the best hot hatch that reasonable money can buy. It will set you back a cool €52,600 for the standard model but, take it from me – the car is outstanding value for what you get. Indeed, the car is just outstanding; full stop.

Why? Three hundred and fifty, yes 350 break horsepower, all-wheel drive, 2.3-lite EcoBoost, four-cylinder turbocharged engine, zero to 100km/h in a blistering 4.7 seconds, 440Nm of torque, four pre-set drive modes: Normal, Sport, Racetrack or – I kid you not – Drift.

On the open road you should rule out the Track and Drift modes unless you have the environment to extract the best from them. Track mode tightens the car so much that a smooth racetrack is the only safe place to check it out.

The Drift mode has been one of the key selling points for the car in the lead up to its launch. It actually softens the suspension and the ride so that the car can be driven sideways at will with the power shifting to the outside rear wheel as you let it loose.

However, it is in Sport mode that this car is at its ultimate, beastly best. It is relatively sensible in Normal mode, and you can drive it as a road car but, as soon as you flick it into Sport, all the technology and the sheer guts of the car come together to give you a sensational, foot-perfect response. Think Usain Bolt half way through the 100m sprint. Kick on and there is nothing in the sector that will catch it.

And the sound? Oh what a sound! Take a dollop of heavy metal, mix it with the percussion section of a symphony orchestra, a dash of Rory Gallagher added to the rhythm of a reggae band and somewhere amongst the popping, growling and purring of the exhaust, you are taken to a place that no composer has yet reached.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.