2019 Ford Focus vs 2018

What's the difference?

While It might be hard to explain exactly what micro-niche the Active falls into, it's less difficult to understand it's appeal.

Let's face it, the vast majority of us will never have need for the complex four-wheel-drive systems that appear in some SUVs.

And so a car like the Active makes obvious sense. Whatever the hell it is.

Even with a 10 per cent price premium the Ford Focus RS Limited Edition is the hot hatch bargain of the decade. It’s properly fast, dynamically outstanding, and sounds the business. Our advice? Get in quick and grab one of this last batch. You won’t regret it.

Like the look of the Focus hatchback? Then have we got some news for you. Because the Active looks a lot like one, just a little higher off the ground.

The 17-inch alloys are fitted with higher-profile tyres, and there is some black wheel-arch cladding and side skirts that are designed to convey an adventurous spirit, but outside of that, it's Focus through and through.

That's not a bad thing, mind. The new Focus is a handsome small car. More that you can see where the marketing department might struggle to call this anything but a hatchback.

Climb into the cabin and you're met with an equally Focused experience, though there are some exclusive Active niceties on display. That Nordic Blue piping on the seats, for example, or the 'A'-stamped seat patterns and the Active-stamped scuff plates at the doors.

Think hot hatch, and your mind might wander to the more radical end of the design spectrum where Honda’s Kabuki warrior on wheels, the Civic Type R lives. But the Focus RS is an altogether more mature proposition.

The nose is dominated by a single, wide-mouth grille aperture, which frames an opening to the radiator, the central section of the bumper, and the top of the intercooler below it.

Big side gills feed cooling air through to the front brakes, while the slim, raked headlights and hard-edged bonnet give the car a suitably ‘focused’ and purposeful presence.

Strategically placed channels and bulges along the rocker panel, door sills, and shoulder line add a further touch of aero function, the wheelarches are subtly pumped up, while a pronounced roof spoiler and full-width diffuser at the rear complete the track-attack look.

For this LE version, you can have any colour you like as long as it’s ‘Nitrous Blue’, the rear spoiler end plates, mirror shells and roof are black, and privacy glass is standard. The big 19-inch alloys are now black, with beefy four-piston Brembo brakes lurking behind them up front.

Inside, the fascia and console layout is familiar Focus, with an additional trio of gauges (oil temp, turbo boost pressure, and oil pressure) perched on the top of the dash, while the racy Recaro shell seats are trimmed with Nitrous Blue leather highlights.

The Active stretches some 4.4m in length, 1.8m in width and 1.5m in height. In other words, it's very much the Focus hatch you're familiar with, no matter how much the ride height has been lifted.

And that means your key figures are largely unchanged, too; you'll get 375 litres of boot space with the rear seats in place (about on-par for the segment), and 1354 litres with the seats folded flat, though that's measured all the way to the roof line.

Up front, you'll find two cupholders, and a storage pocket in each of the front doors. On the tech front, there's a USB point in front of the wireless charging pad, and another hidden in a  deep, covered central storage bin.

Ford says there is more shoulder room in the backseat, and they've tried to design an airy-feeling space, thanks to larger rear windows. And if you've ever spent time in a car like the Toyota C-HR, for example, then you'll know how important a little lightness and brightness can be for backseat riders.

That's about where the good news ends for backseat riders, though. There's no cupholders (nor a pull-down divider to house them in) and no USB points either. Also missing are rear air vents.

There are two ISOFIX attachment points, though, one in each window seat in the back.

Despite its performance potential, this RS is almost as practical as a regular, garden-variety Focus.

The front Recaros look like oversize baseball gloves, ready to lock you in place while the Focus does its best to challenge the laws of physics.

But the price you pay for all that location is some extra struggle to slip into, and extricate yourself from, their grippy goodness. Not a huge issue, and one that goes with the territory in this kind of car.

There are two cupholders up front, zero in the back, and bottle holders in all doors. There’s also a 12-volt socket, a USB outlet, as well as a decent glove box, and a lidded bin between the front seats to keep your stuff under control at maximum g-load.

Despite extra intrusion from the front seatbacks, rear legroom is surprisingly good, and headroom in the back is okay for this 183cm tester.

The rear seats flip forward, and the backrests split-fold 60/40 to increase load flexibility. Volume is a relatively modest 260 litres (VDA) with the rear seats upright (laden to the parcel shelf), growing to 1045 litres (laden to the roof) with them folded. There are also two ISOFIX child seat mounts.

Don’t bother looking for a spare tyre; a flat means rolling the dice with the repair kit that takes its place.

At $50,990, the ‘standard’ Focus RS already features a respectable standard equipment list, including dual-zone climate control air, Ford’s latest SYNC3 multimedia system running through an 8.0-inch colour touchscreen (including Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support), adaptive headlights, ambient interior lighting, alloy faced sports pedals, 19-inch alloy rims, cruise control, keyless entry and start, LED DRLs, front fog lights, auto headlights, nine-speaker audio, a leather-trimmed sports steering wheel and gear knob, rain-sensing wipers, satellite navigation, and the sports seats.

At $56,990, the RS Limited Edition adds a worthwhile basket of extra spec and tech to justify the $6k price premium over the model it replaces.

Headline items are the swap from Michelin Pilot Super Sport to Pilot Sport Cup 2 rubber (an option Ford was already listing at $3500), and installation of a tricky Quaife limited-slip differential (LSD).

The Recaro shell seats are trimmed in Nitrous Blue leather, the black 19-inch rims are forged alloy, the standard prestige paint is normally a $450 option, and importantly, Auto Emergency Braking has been added to the standard features list.

A price tag approaching $60,000 is no small number, but it’s sharp for this kind of performance hatch. The Audi RS3 Sportback and Merc-AMG A45 are both at least $20k dearer.

There's just the one engine and gearbox combo on offer here, but it's a peach. A woeful sounding on paper, but utterly charming in real life, 1.5-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine good for 134kW and 240Nm, which is fed through an eight-speed automatic to produce an 8.7 second sprint to 100km/h.

You also get improved independent rear suspension that's missing from most Focus models. Plus the key difference that makes this Active more, well, active, is the increased ride height, but we're really only talking a handful of centimetres at each end.

The RS’s 2.3-litre ‘EcoBoost’ four-cylinder petrol engine is an all-alloy unit, featuring direct injection, ‘Twin Independent Variable Cam Timing’ (Ti-VCT), and a Honeywell twin-scroll fixed geometry turbocharger.

It produces 257kW (350hp) at 6000rpm, with 440Nm of torque (470Nm for up to 15sec on ‘transient overboost’) from 2000-4500rpm.

It’s matched with a six-speed (MMT6) manual gearbox (only), driving all four wheels, with the Quaife LSD managing torque distribution across the front axle. The Quaife uses gears rather than clutches, as in a Haldex-type LSD, for smoother operation and to avoid harsh locking.

Up to 70 per cent of drive can be sent to the rear wheels, and once it’s arrived back there, a dedicated control system can vector up to 100 per cent of that torque to the left or right rear wheel.

It might be a tiny three-cylinder engine, but Ford has still thought hard about the fuel use equation, including a cylinder deactivation function that, when cruising, shuts down one of the cylinders to save petrol.

As a result, the claimed/combine fuel use figure is 6.4 litres per hundred kilometres - and it's a believable quote, as we scored 6.5 litres after a day of pretty enthusiastic driving.

The Co2 emissions are pegged at a claimed 148g/km, and the fuel tank will hold 52 litres.

Claimed fuel economy for the combined (ADR 81/02 - urban, extra-urban) cycle is 7.7L/100, the car emitting 175g/km of C02 in the process.

Auto stop-start is standard (although it didn’t exactly feature on this circuit drive), and you’ll need 51 litres of premium unleaded to fill the tank.

"Would you take a regular hatchback on sand?" Asks one of the Blue Oval's reps, as we point the noise of our Active at a stretch of commendably soft sand.

And if we're honest, the answer to that question would be a resounding "no". Not least of which because we've just watched the Active in front of us getting pulled out of this very sand pit, the front tyres dug into the soft stuff like they were burrowing their way to China.

But no sooner was it pulled out than the Active was tackling that very obstacle again, this time with a bit more speed, and sure enough, the high-riding Focus was through the sand and out the other side, the front tyres somehow finding a way to keep the Focus moving.

And then we followed, and with the same successful result. As did the car after us. And so on. 

Now, a true off-roader it ain't. The Active is a front-wheel-drive only proposition, but it's two new drive modes (Trail and Slippery) are intended to give you just a little more confidence as you pull into a campsite or turn onto an unsealed road.

But for mine, the real charm of the Active isn't how it performs off-road, but rather on it. It's not a particularly sporty-feeling drive, and to be fair, there are other cars in the Ford range that can tackle those duties, but the steering is engaging, and it's a composed, comfortable and quiet drive experience.

Part of the reason for that is the new independent rear suspension setup (also found in the ST Line wagon). We piloted the Active over some pretty harsh and broken country roads on our drive program, and it proved plenty comfortable, disposing of most road imperfections with little bother.

A final word? I bloody love the engine. A tiny little three-cylinder unit, sure, but it never feels underdone, even when overtaking uphills. And for bonus points, it makes a delightful little burble when you plant your right foot.

Ford laid on its full line-up of performance-oriented Focuses for the launch drive, from the (132kW/240Nm) front-wheel drive S, through the (184kW/354Nm) FWD ST, to the out-going Focus RS, and the hero blue meanie RS Limited Edition.

Intermittent heavy showers were welcome for once, because the wet track highlighted the difference between the variants so graphically, and helped put the RS LE in clear context.

The first surprise was how capable the humble Focus S felt around SMSP’s challenging North Circuit. And the ST stepped things up with more grunt and fatter rubber. But they only served to prove the RS is in another league of dynamic ability.

The RS is fast, as in 0-100km/h in 4.7sec fast (thanks in part to standard launch control), with a maximum velocity of 266km/h available (that’s some track day!).

Fat mid-range torque, linear throttle response, and six ratios means there’s always plenty of acceleration available, and with one of four drive modes the press of a console button away there’s much fun to be had.

The settings modify steering, ESC, dampers, engine and exhaust across ‘Normal’, ‘Sport’, ‘Track’ and ‘Drift’ modes (more on that last one in a minute).

No surprise the jump from front- to all-wheel drive is a big one, but in the wet conditions peddling through SMSP’s enigmatic Turn 2, the RS took way more steering and throttle input than it had any right to.

Strong mid-range punch slingshots the car forward, accompanied by an entertaining symphony of raspy engine note.

Just keep turning the wheel and squeezing the right-hand pedal, to the point where the car’s balance would surely crack, and it simply says, ‘Is that the best you can do?’

Swap into the RS Limited Edition, and the Quaife diff ratchets things up another couple of notches. In Track mode, in the same turn, the LE is ridiculously planted. You can feel the rear slamming the power down and driving the car out of the corner, with the front just sticking wherever you point it.

Strong mid-range punch slingshots the car forward, accompanied by an entertaining symphony of raspy engine note and raucous crackles and pops from the exhaust.

Push hard enough of course and the RS LE will start to slide, but through the fast, sweeping Turn 1 it took the form of a genuine four-wheel drift. That’s how balanced and composed this car is under pressure.

Feel from the electrically-assisted steering is good, and although the stickier Cup 2 Michelins are the same size (235/35) as the Super Sports, thanks to a stiffer sidewall, their footprint is seven per cent wider. And searching for off-line grip around wet corners was a smile-inducing pleasure.

Then there’s the brakes. Even trying to stand the 1.6- tonne RS LE on its nose, while splashing through puddles of standing water, the RS LE washed off speed rapidly without a hint of misbehaviour. Turn in and maintain some trail braking? No problem. The RS’s set-up is properly sorted.

All the while, you remain firmly secured in your Recaro cacoon, with the clutch and short-throw shift working beautifully together.

We also engaged Drift mode for a full-on hoon on the SMSP skidpan. Keep your eye on where you want to go, turn the wheel, pin the throttle and the rear end duly steps out into a classic drift angle. Keep the revs up, tweak the wheel as required, and around you go like a ‘dab of oppo’ legend.

The roll-call of active safety tech fitted to the Focus RS LE includes ABS, AEB, brake assist, EBFD, traction control, DSC, ‘Emergency Brake Lights’ (flashing), reversing camera, parking distance control, and tyre pressure monitoring. Nothing in the way of lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring or rear cross-traffic alert, though.

If a crash is unavoidable, there are dual front head and side airbags on board.

Although the Focus (generically) is rated at a maximum five ANCAP stars, the RS (specifically) is not rated.

The Ford Focus Active is covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, with servicing required every 15,000kms or 12 months.

Service pricing is capped for the first four years, too, with each service costing a maximum $299 for the first four years or 60,000km.

Ford offers a standard three years/100,000km warranty, which isn’t exactly spectacular these days, but with standard servicing at ‘Participating Auto Club Authorised Ford Dealers’, retail and ‘Blue Business Fleet’ customers receive state auto club roadside assistance and membership for up to seven years/105,000km.

The recommended service interval for the Focus RS is 12 months/15,000km, with costs for the first five years lining up as follows - $365, $395, $365, $585, and $365. In fact, Ford’s online service calculator runs out to the 33 year/495,000km service (which, for the record, is $365).

Worth noting brake fluid (every two years), coolant (every 10 years), and timing/drive belts (every 10 years/195,000km) are extra.