The 400bhp Ford Focus RS500 Probably Won't Happen, And It's All America's Fault
It’s been rumoured for months and the damn thing has even been spotted testing at the ‘Ring in prototype form, but it’s looking like a high-power Focus ‘RS500’ may not happen at all.
Autocar reports that there are worries a near-400bhp, track-focused RS would muddy the fast Ford waters too much, giving overlap with cars like the Mustang GT and GT350. This issue is thought to “have put a question mark” over whether or not the American Ford dealer network even wants the car.
In Europe it’s seemingly less of an issue, perhaps partially due to Ford’s other track car - the GT350 - not being sold on this continent. A solution would be a Europe-only RS500, but that doesn’t fit so well with the company’s worldwide ‘One Ford’ strategy, and anyway, a smaller market would mean a smaller budget for the car’s development.
The project isn’t dead and buried just yet, with Autocar’s sources currently giving the car a 30 per cent chance of happening. Let’s cross our fingers…
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
“We can’t make a faster awd hatchback, what if people stop buying our rwd muscle cars?” Corporate Ford doesn’t seem to understand the car world. They’re more afraid of stepping on their own toes than those of their competition. Priorities….
“What if people stop buying our other fast awd hatch? Or maybe they’ll just buy our slightly lower powered fwd hatch? Or maybe they would prefer said faster hatch over our similarly-powered pony cars?” Believe it or not there are more than 2 cars in Ford’s lineup.
Grab your pitchforks and firesticks people…
“A solution would be a Europe-only RS500, but that doesn’t fit so well with the company’s worldwide ‘One Ford’ strategy”
So I guess that’s why I can’t buy a GT350 or GT350R in UK?
They either need to start selling it here or shut up and make the RS500 at least for Europe. I don’t think development costs are that high since its just a tweaked up version of the Focus RS.
I believe that the GT350 can’t come over the Atlantic because of “strict emission laws”. But I think that there is some gonads in that. The 5.0 is like 20-30 hp down on their stars & stripes counterparts. Ford are probably being dickish about the whole thing just because they can.
Just give them a damn gt350 and they’ll be happy
ITS SHlT
We can’t be mixing the power of a mustang with a Focus RS, there’d need to be more cemetery’s built if it does happen.
Not thst fussed, the old rs500 was more or less a remapped Rs wrapped in crap black.
I love Ford but this mentality absolutely ticks me off. They did it back in the 80’s with the mustang svo. It could’ve easily been faster than the gt but they watered it down because “the gt must be the best mustang.” And now this. It seems to me that Ford intentionally stops progress all because of a philosophy behind the mustang .
A solution would be a Europe-only RS500, but that doesn’t fit so well with the company’s worldwide ‘One Ford’
Oh rly? Then why don’t we have the GT350 here?