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Jaggy Cars – April 2009
Ford Focus RS
Lighting the (Ford) Blue Touch Paper … The Ford Focus Firework
You know that sense of anticipation you get when you go along to the local beauty parlour for your first Brazilian?
It probably seemed like a good idea just the other night in the pub standing there with your mates and offering to do something to raise money for charity. One says he’s going to bungee jump off a bridge, another will swim with sharks and another is going to firewalk barefoot over hot coals.
Faced with that, how do you top it? You volunteer to have your hairy legs waxed. And you all have a laugh. Come the day. All your mates have done the scary things you didn’t want to do and now it’s your turn.
You turn up at the local salon and the lady checks you in. Trousers off and lie down. And then this perfectly glam and innocent hostess gently applies a warm and soothing wax strip to your leg. Hey this isn’t so bad after all.
Then she takes a firm grip of the pull tab and you feel just the tiniest tincture of pain as she takes up the slack on the hairs. She places her other hand firmly on your chest and whispers seductively: “Are you ready?”
Sheeeee-ite!
That’s just like the Ford Focus RS. Trickling along at 4000 rpm in fourth, still under the legal limit. The twin exhausts offering up a subdued and soothing rumble from the five cylinders, the turbos turning lazily under the bonnet. And then some baseball hat in a Lancer appears in your mirror - and you hit the loud pedal.
Sheeeee-ite!
Ya beezer, it’s just like that exquisite moment of pain when the salon lady wheeched the sticky off and let you know you were alive. There’s no cacophony of noise, no kick up the goolies, just a gigantic shove up the back that resembles the motion on Star Trek when Scotty hits the warp drive button. The horizon comes at you like catapult elastic.
I’ve driven faster cars, but mostly in straight lines. Where this thing scores, is it’s cross country ability. I reckon it would be a match for any other turbo, four wheel drive whiz bang job. I’d love to get it back to back with one of these machines against a stopwatch, that would be the only way to tell.
A sub 6 second, nought to 60 time, is what you would expect from a 301 bhp machine, but that’s not what the Focus is about, it’s the speed through the gears. Once on the move and with the turbo spinning, the torque and response is mesmerising. One second you are wafting along with a light breeze blowing through the inlet manifold, the next, a fuel-rich, North Sea gale is stuffing gunpowder into the cylinder head. It’s intoxicating stuff.
And it’s not just about go either. The brakes are beefy enough to dump speed when you need to and the steering is like a sixth sense. Perfectly weighted, the more you put in the more it responds. There’s no vicious tugging either. The new Quaife LSD takes the strain and even on full throttle powering out of bends, there is only sufficient light tugging to tell you where the grip is.
The suspension is firm, and yet it absorbs all shocks and judders, even on Britain’s pot-hole acne infected roads. Brake, turn, prod – and smile. Mind you, if you’re still braking and turning when you prod, then hell mend you, and you deserve all you get!
Yes, it will bite if you’re an idiot, but it is truly rewarding for the driver who tries harder. And that is the point of this car. It is a driver’s car, a perfectly usable daily car for the enthusiast who likes to go places at weekends – fast.
In this case, the question is pointless, but I’ll ask it anyway. Would I have one? Like a shot!
In Short:
Price: £25,740
Engine: 2522 cc, 5 cylinder petrol with 301 bhp
Performance: 0-62 mph in 5.9 seconds, flat out at 164 mph
Economy: 40.3 mpg extra urban, 30.5 mpg combined
CO2 emissions: 225 g/km
Insurance Group: ?
*****