Picture the scene. You’re driving in the UK and you find yourself on an unfamiliar B-road.
It’s raining heavily. There’s a hairpin bend coming up fast. The road is greasy, cars are coming in the opposite direction and the children are playing I-spy. You arrive at the bend. You smoothly turn the wheel, wishing that your knowledge of the skidpan was as adept as your taste in cars. Do you make it through? Of course you do. You’re driving a Mk3 Ford Focus RS, that’s why.
In a purely front- or rear-driven car of similar performance, this could have been an issue. In the Focus RS, though, things aren’t so demanding. Ford’s performance division has form at turning ordinary road cars into some of the most masterful machines money can buy, and this scorching-hot hatchback is no exception.
At first glance, it looks overly garish. The sort of machine that, if it were a person, would wear a tracksuit to a wedding and drink straight from the bottle. However, if you look at the details (the rear spoiler, cooling ducts deeper than the New York subway and the outrageous bucket seats), you realise this car is intent on one thing: going as fast as it can whenever it can.
This might sound dangerous, but with the added traction of a universally praised four-wheel drive system, it’s a very safe bet. No wonder 4000 Britons signed on the dotted line.
Out on the open road, the Focus RS becomes a a 345bhp, 2.3-litre turbocharged tour de force. Drive to those four wheels is through a slick six-speed manual gearbox only. No fancy dual-clutch options here. Despite weighing in excess of 1.5 tonnes, it can sprint from 0-62mph in under 5sec, and run on to 165mph if you have the roads to do it on. If you’re midway through a corner and fancy blow to the headrest, its drivetrain erupts and deposits you on the straight with all the enthusiasm and obedience of a sheepdog.
At this point, you will probably be wondering how much all this costs. Well, the good news is the Focus RS can now be yours for just £22,000 used – and that’s nearly £7000 less than the equivalent used Audi RS3.
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