It didn’t enjoy a long life, especially here in North America, and it didn’t make it through that short time span without an embarrassing engine defect, but good luck finding someone who’d turn down a hoon session in a Ford Focus RS.
As the king of all hot hatches, the Focus RS gave enthusiasts a sensible five-door for shuttling their kids to school and the ability to shred four tires into coleslaw on the trip home. Well, get ready to pick up a shovel. The Focus goes into its grave on April 6th, and the model line’s future has never looked shakier.
Built at Ford’s Saarlouis, Germany assembly plant, the final iteration of the AWD monster will be a 50-unit run bound for the UK.
Ford of Britain will offer just a handful of Focus RS Heritage Editions, each painted Tief (Deep) Orange, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Escort RS1600 — the brand’s first RS-badged car. After that … who knows? Given Ford’s current heading, relatively unprofitable cars like the Focus, currently in the grip of declining sales, could disappear from the market before too long. That, or return as a crossover-style vehicle, perhaps powered solely by electrons.
A next-generation Focus looms, but Ford punted assembly of future North America-bound models to China last year, rather than build them in a politically uncertain Mexico. Future Focus cars won’t have nearly the diversity of models past, either, as Ford’s streamlining plan allows for far fewer buildable combinations.
You’ll never be able to buy one here, but it’s worth noting that the Focus RS’ final examples benefit from content upgrades, while the already tuned 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder goes in for another testosterone treatment, this one provided by Mountune. Final specs are 370 horsepower and 376 lb-ft — an increase of 20 hp and 26 lb-ft.
North America’s final taste of the RS came last year when, for the 2018 model year, Ford offered U.S. customers 1,000 limited-edition models. Another 500 went to buyers north of the border. Since then, a deluge of complaints saw the automaker call back the entirety of its RS models to replace head gaskets that couldn’t keep coolant away the EcoBoost’s combustion chambers.
It’s possible we’ll see another RS once production of the next-gen Focus gets underway, but it’s an increasingly safe bet that such a variant would be the model’s last.
[Images: Ford Motor Company]
Plenty of leftover 2016s and 2017s still available people! Not enough cash on hood though.
If they’d just sold them at MSRP at launch… I tried to buy one (and a Raptor) from my local dealer but they wanted $5K up on the RS and $10K up on the Raptor. I ended up with a Golf R. Not upset.
“If they’d just sold them at MSRP at launch… I tried to buy one (and a Raptor) from my local dealer but they wanted $5K up on the RS and $10K up on the Raptor. I ended up with a Golf R. Not upset.”
Not that it was all that easy to get a Golf R at MSRP.
The RS would have been all right for a few sweaty hours of passion, but the R is what you want to wake up next to.
I got my Golf R for $1K under sticker and they tinted it for me on top of that. It was much less painless and way less obnoxious than the Ford guy’s explanation of “Well, see, this is a very special car…” Meh.
And yes, I love my Golf R.
I’m seeing a few new sub-$20k 2017 Focus STs for sale – tempting, very tempting.
Yet another vehicle tossed onto the, “if they would only bring it to the United States I’d buy one tomorrow,” trash heap of history.
(not saying the RS was trash – well OK, some of the engines were but Ford is taking care of that)
Beat me to it. Now RS owners will console themselves with the perceived value of having a rare ride.
Hey, I’m all for choice and “The More, The Merrier” in the market place but even if they did bring it to the US, would they sell enough of them to break even?
That hardly seems fair. Ford took a long time getting the car here, and it’s going out because the current Focus is finished. Dealer price-gouging didn’t help move them either. But there is a lot of interest in these cars.
This. Dealer price-gouging killed it. A lot of current Golf R owners would have been Focus RS owners if not for dealership greed. Very unfortunate. I am one of those “if they bring it here, I’ll buy it” people – I have a V60 Polestar. :)
Plus, I gather the thing rode had all the suspension travel of a Radio Flyer wagon.
Golf R is probably a lot easier to live with on a day in / day out basis.
This cars head gasket issues will follow it to its grave. You can’t have fun with a car that doesn’t run.
Doesnt seem to stop Subaru owners.
Love covers a multitude of sins.
I’d rather they gave the next ST more power, a REAL LSD and the Revoknuckle. That would render the RS a bit irrelevant.
I’m eagerly awaiting the Edge RS, with standard automatic transmission.
The sad part is that it will cost $10,000 more and still outsell the Focus RS 10:1.
Love the less than subliminal messaging on that licence plate.
Maybe the RS will come back on the Escape?
Thanks to price gouging dealers here in OKC I have only seen 1 Focus RS in the wild and 1 is sitting a local Ford Dealers service line (I guess its awaiting parts for the cylinder head issue). Heck, I’ve seen a couple of Polestars around here and there’s only around 550 in the whole world.