2016 Ford Focus vs 2017

What's the difference?

Tim Robson road tests and reviews the Ford Focus RS with specs, fuel consumption and verdict at its Australian launch.

The hype is real. Since its launch in Valencia earlier this year, the talk around Ford's new Focus RS has been nothing but positive. Glowing, even.

Its design objective is function over flash.

Driving it in the rosy glow of a launch event in a far-off exotic clime is one thing; punting it over typical Aussie back roads and city streets is usually a far sterner test of a car's ability to live up to its own press.

This car also needs to live up to a long-held tradition of smoking hot small Ford RS (Rallye Sport) models that stretches back over 40 years and 30 cars.

On paper, the Focus RS presents a compelling case; a revolutionary new all-wheel-drive system, a potent turbo engine and a chassis tune to match. Time, then, to see if the RS truly is as good as it purports to be.

Richard Berry road tests and reviews the new Ford Focus RS with specs, fuel consumption and verdict.

Everybody would love a pet monkey. Who wouldn’t? But trust me, you don’t want one, I’ve looked into it. Sure they do tricks, they’re cute, they’re fun, and they look amazing in period costume, but the reality is they want to bite your face off.

It’s the same with most high performance cars. They seem like fun, but often the reality of living with these beasts can be painful. Too low, too wide, too hard to see out of, injected with too much power and fitted with a suspension that’s way too firm. Amazing fun on a race circuit, but hard to live with as a daily driver.

Which is why the new Ford Focus RS waiting in our car park made me do my excited, quick-walk to meet it, but at the same time made me dread the week ahead with its day-care pick-ups, supermarket shopping trips and peak-hour commuting on typically ordinary city roads.

The hype leading up to the arrival of the Focus RS in July 2016 was huge. That RS badge is a medal of honour worn by fast Fords since the 1970s, and it had been six years since the last Ford Focus RS emerged. 

Word spread fast that all of them would be built in Germany, that they would be packing big horsepower with all-wheel drive and acceleration quick enough to scare a Porsche 911. The fact that Rallycross star and professional hoon Ken Block had helped develop it filled the RS's arrival with even more promise.

It’s still very much a ‘Franken-Focus’ monster in looks and its heart.

It was all true and now it was here. So what was it like to live with – with a family? Does it really have a drift mode? And what was the most painful part of about the experience? Unless you’ve driven one, you’ll never guess.