Tuesday, August 26, 2014

2016 Ford Focus RS: AWD Back on the Table, U.S. Sales More Likely than Ever

2016 Ford Focus RS hatchback (spy photo)

A new wrinkle in the ongoing saga of the Ford Focus RS and its possible U.S. arrival has emerged: Our pals at Road & Track are reporting that the not only is the RS now more likely than ever to be sold in the U.S., but that it will blat and slide onto our shores packing all-wheel-drive.

Quoting an unnamed insider, R&T says the RS will appear in "extremely limited numbers, and unlike its predecessor will be all-wheel drive." The former jibes with our most recent report, which said that the RS isn't likely to appear before 2016 or 2017, one or two years before the current-gen Focus is due to be replaced. We had also previously spotted a camouflaged Focus RS undergoing testing right here in the Rust Belt, followed shortly thereafter by a new batch of details that fueled speculation of a stateside arrival.

2009 Ford Focus RS

SUCK UP ALL OF THE ROAD: The last-gen Focus RS was front-wheel drive.

As for the all-wheel-drive tidbit, persistent rumors that a 330-hp variant of the 2.3-liter EcoBoost turbo four from the 2015 Ford Mustang might find a home in the Focus RS had us wondering how exactly Ford would mitigate the inevitable torque steer if the car remained front-wheel drive. Based on our experience with the current Focus ST, it seems Ford's torque-steer-mitigation prowess may be maxed out. (The ST uses its stability-control program to brake individual front wheels when it senses torque steer; it sort of works. The last RS used RevoKnuckle, a special strut design, to stay out of ditches.) So it makes sense that Ford might call on an AWD setup to spread output to both ends of the car; we're assuming that any additional weight of the driveline components will be offset by the additional power.



We reached out to our own sources at Ford, and this is what they had to say: "None of what is being reported is confirmed, including the part about the RS coming to America. That said, everything in the [report] references existing stuff, and is certainly doable. If you look at what we can do with the Escape, which is a C-platform vehicle, you can see these things are not beyond the realm of possibility." We didn't read a categorical denial in there, did you? The scales may indeed be beginning to tip in our favor.

2016 Ford Focus RS hatchback (spy photo)



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