Back in February this year we talked about the “love to drive” idea and how Ford where doing the right thing by delivering a bunch of “love to drive” new performance vehicles for the drive enthusiasts out there. This was brought about by the reintroduction of the Ford Performance Team an amalgamation of the Ford SVT, Team RS and Ford Racing.
Well it looks like the next performance vehicle hinted at by Ford will be a Fiesta RS and if the Focus RS is anything to measure it by it should be good. Similar to the Fiesta ST, which gets a lot of great reviews, there’s no doubt that there’s room to bring a standout RS version to the market.
The Fiesta ST has justified Ford’s decision to bring a small hot hatch to the market place to compete with the others like the Fiat 500 Abarth, Mini Cooper S, Audi S1 and the VW Polo GTI. We can certainly see a compelling role for a hotter Fiesta to help Ford stay on even or better terms with this competition.
We have read that the existing Fiesta platform will take well to the RS treatment. Ford has reported that the Focus RS had to deliver a different league performance from the ST version, which should transfer to any Fiesta RS.
Predictions for the Fiesta RS hinted at so far:
- Widened track
- Comprehensively reworked suspension
- Limited-slip differential
- Aggressive weight-saving measures
- Increased power from the ST’s 1.6-litre EcoBoost
- A Manual Transmission
Ford have historically shown a great track record of delivering RS cars that stay drivable despite serious power and we have seen reports that make it hard to guess if Ford would introduce a 4-wheel-drive version. The second-generation Focus RS produces 224kW as standard and 257kW in a performance tuned version.
Of course, nothing has been confirmed at this stage other than articles about testing, but this information is enough to get us interested for what might be. The Focus RS has launched in the UK and is due for its launch in this part of the world by early 2016, but considering how likable the Fiesta ST is, we can’t wait to see what the RS treatment could bring to the Fiesta.
May 2015
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