2016 Ford Focus RS may yet be AWD, US sales likely

Fri, 29 Aug 2014

When it comes to forbidden fruit, few vehicles are spoken of in as hushed a tone as the Ford Focus RS. The turbocharged, five-cylinder hot hatch could only be seen from afar by American customers as it tore up the roads of Europe. And while it's safe to say that Ford's Yankee fans are quite happy to now be on equal footing with drivers in the old country thanks to the Focus ST, we doubt there'd be much protestation over a successor to the RS arriving stateside.

Of course, we've seen images of the new RS undergoing testing, but a new story by Road and Track aims to fill in some very large blanks in our knowledge of that car, thanks to a pair of mysterious insiders at the Ford. Chief among those is this – the RS will almost certainly make its way to the US, albeit in limited quantities. It gets better, though.

Under hood, the new RS is unsurprisingly expected to borrow the 2.3-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder from the 2015 Ford Mustang and 2015 Lincoln MKC. While that twin-scroll turbo produces 310 horsepower in the Mustang and 285 ponies in the MKC, R&T expects the RS to deliver quite a bit more firepower – 325 to 350 hp, with preference going to the higher output due to the limited-edition nature of the RS. This roughly fits with previous reports.

R&T has it from two sources that the RS will use an all-wheel-drive system, which we imagine will be a must with so much power. The system will be totally distinct from Ford's other car-based AWD systems, and will feature torque-vectoring for even sharper handling. This system should, according to R&T, trickle down to other applications (AWD Focus ST?).

While this all seems like excellent news, as is always the case, we'd caution against counting your chickens, at least until the new model hatches. Skepticism aside, what do you think of this news? How much would you be willing to shell out for a 350-hp, AWD Focus? What other features would you like to see from Ford? Have your say in Comments.

By Brandon Turkus