Ford Focus RS – Details and new mega gallery

As we've already reported, the Focus RS will start from £24,995, it will have a 305hp engine that will shoot the fast Ford from 0-62mph in 5.9 seconds and go on to an unlimited top speed of 163mph.

But if you're disappointed to learn that Ford didn't opt for four-wheel drive for the RS, Team RS Chief Engineer, Dirk Densing came up with this explaination:

“Front-wheel-drive was our preference all along. All-wheel-drive systems add cost, weight, inertia and consequently, fuel consumption. Compensating for the significant weight of an all-wheel-drive system requires dynamic compromises we preferred not to make. If you can achieve the performance you want without steering disturbance, then front-wheel-drive is a better performance car – lighter and with a more precise, linear steering response than AWD. With the work of our advanced research team in Aachen, we were able to achieve this and deliver something genuinely different.”

The Focus RS has also been tested at Ford's Lommel Proving Ground in Belgium and has beaten the previous lap record set by the Ford GT, so it turns out this could just be the fastest Ford ever.

Well, as long as they have achived this without as Dirk puts it ‘steering disturbance’ (silly amounts of torque steer…) then fair play to Team RS. We'll let you know if this is actually the case when we get our hands behind the wheel on the launch in a couple of weeks time.