[CARtoday]
The Ford Focus RS Concept has broken cover ahead of its official London Motor Show debut this month. Purists will lament the move to front-wheel drive and the lime-flavoured paint job, but with 224 kW under the nose who’s complaining?
The RS Concept heavily utilises the Focus ST’s underpinnings, but bolts on additional power, go-fast styling features and a bevy of suspension and drivetrain modifications that will help to transfer as much of that 224 kW to the road/gravel as possible.Beneath that vented bonnet lies an ST-derived turbocharged 2,5-litre Duratec engine. This unit develops 224 kW and a whopping 410 N.m of torque, which, according to Ford, will make the RS Concept the fastest Focus model ever produced. Ford is still tight-lipped regarding performance figures, but there has been talk of a 0-100 km/h time of less than six seconds.
The combination of the RS Concept’s front-wheel drive set up and 224 kW will be a bone of contention amongst enthusiasts, but Ford has acknowledged such concerns and employed a number of drivetrain and suspension solutions which should hopefully reign in any unmanageable torque steer.The RS Concept features a revised version of Ford’s ESP system, which has been designed only intervene when a high dynamic threshold has been broken. True to this car’s track-biased nature, the ESP system can be fully de-activated.
Ford’s engineers have designed a unique suspension set up for the RS, called the ‘RevoKnuckle’. This system is a simplified version of the traditional McPherson strut set up which, thanks to revised geometry settings, is said to largely negate the effects of torque steer and enable the car to keep the intended direction of travel even under heavy throttle.
Ford hopes this system will obviate the need for all-wheel drive and its associated weight gains due to the extra differential and driveshafts such a set up entails. Instead, a Quaife automatic torque-biasing limited-slip differential is tasked with keeping the traction steady even on less-than-ideal surfaces. The RS Concept also sports a 40mm wider track, 19-inch wheels shod with 235/35 Continental rubbers, upgraded springs, dampers and thicker anti-roll bars. The brakes have also been uprated to a set of ventilated 336 mm discs up front, and 300 mm rear discs with larger calipers.The production-ready version of the RS will go on sale in Europe early next year.
