2010 Ford Focus RS500 First Drive

The 2010 Ford Focus RS500 is the kind of car we used to doodle at school: OTT (over-the-top) styling, matte-black paint and a turbo engine so vociferous that it should come with a health warning. Limited to a production run of 500 examples, this hatchback is the ultimate iteration of the Euro-spec Focus and one of the craziest cars Ford has ever built.

Once you find 3rd gear, the RS500 has such crazed intensity that it's almost comical. Nail the throttle and feel the turbocharged, 345-horsepower, 2.5-liter inline-5 pull easily from 1,000 rpm and then hear the turbo start to wind up at 2,500 rpm. Now the kick comes, accompanied by an old-school whistle from the turbo and a baritone bellow from the oversized exhaust. The front tires absorb the torque, the diff does its thing and the RS hurls itself forward with a vigor rarely seen in an unmodified hatchback from a major manufacturer.

The 2010 Ford Focus RS500 might wear a stealthy matte-black cloak but there is nothing subtle about the way it delivers its fury. This is a Focus that costs an outrageous $54,200 in the U.K., yet is already sold out. It's an instant classic, and with good reason.

We're Ford; We Can Do This
As one Ford insider told us, his engineering team built the RS500 "because we can." It is a statement from a confident company, a flamboyant recognition of the powerful appeal that the Focus still has at the end of its production life. Until now, the ultimate Focus has been the 2009 Ford Focus RS. Launched in early 2009, the standard RS was developed to poke new life into an aging product. Ford reckoned they'd sell 7,000-8,000 in Europe, but when production of the RS ends this September, the company will have sold more than 11,000. Apparently Europe's love affair with the fast Ford is stronger than ever.

Actually the RS500 badge is designed to invoke the rear-wheel-drive Ford Sierra RS500, another heroic Ford. This car also boasted a production run of 500 and was built to homologate competition versions for the track and rally stages, where the car proved hugely successful. A road-going version today can command $50,000.

Ford lacked the resources to redevelop the standard RS's chassis, so instead it focused on the engine. Work on the 2,521cc Duratec inline-5 concentrated on the breathing, as Ford's technicians were unwilling to compromise the engine's flexible power in the search for more performance. Accordingly, boost pressure has only been increased by 4 percent to a peak of 18.9 psi.

When the car comes on boost, it's signified by the evocative combination of wastegate whistle and exhaust woofle.

Engineers from Ford's TeamRS enlisted the help of Revolve Technologies, a company that already offers Ford-approved aftermarket upgrades through its Mountune brand. Together they developed an array of hardware to coax more power from the Focus engine: a larger air-to-air intercooler to deliver a cooler, denser intake charge; a larger-diameter exhaust downpipe; and an uprated fuel pump. Needless to say, the software for the ECU has also been rewritten to manage the engine's larger lungs.

The net result is a 45-hp increase in power to 345 hp at 6,000 rpm, and the addition of 15 pound-feet of torque to a peak of 339 lb-ft of torque at 2,500-4,500 rpm. Ford says the RS will accelerate to 100 km/h (62 mph) from a standstill in 5.6 seconds, 0.3 second quicker than before. Top speed is unchanged at 163 mph.

Mature Engineering
There is a real integrity to Ford's work here. The temptation to crank up the boost in pursuit of willy-waving outputs must have been strong, but to do so would have compromised the driving experience. The Focus RS already has a challenge coping with its turbocharged 300-hp engine despite the car's unique "RevoKnuckle" front suspension (to minimize torque steer), Quaife limited-slip differential and 235/35R19 Continental tires. In fact, the RS engine's output is already electronically limited in 1st and 2nd gears.

The steering tug under hard acceleration that's a feature of the standard car is mildly exaggerated here in the 2010 Ford Focus RS500. Fans of the Mitsubishi Evo and Subaru Impreza WRX STI will no doubt sneer at this, but it's very much part of the RS experience. You have to moderate your throttle inputs in this front-driver, just as you would in an old-school rear-drive car. For us, that's part of the challenge and part of the fun.

The outright grip and the ability of the RS to transfer its power to the road also remains nothing short of extraordinary. Even under full-bore acceleration, the stability control system is all but redundant, at least in the dry. When the car comes on boost, signified by the evocative combination of wastegate whistle and exhaust woofle, this car's midrange thrust is truly staggering.

Taming the Power
You turn in positively to corners, helped by a combination of heavy effort and linear action. Get the nose into the apex early and then use all that torque to pull you out of the turn. You can adjust your cornering line with the throttle, but basically this car wants to be commanded, not finessed. The 2010 Ford Focus RS500 makes you feel and act like a hooligan with a naughty, self-indulgent grin.

We drove the car on both a smoothly surfaced test track, (where it felt predictably superb), and some acneyed British back roads. The original 2002 Ford Focus RS was quite a handful on anything less than a perfect surface, but suspension design has come a long way since then. The RS500's ride is predictably firm, but it copes remarkably well with bumpy terrain. This is a very usable road car, rather than a track day escapee.

The 2010 Ford Focus RS500 should be reliable as well, since Ford employed a team of race drivers to complete 500 consecutive laps of the Nurburgring Nordschleife during the car's development, which is the equivalent of more than 10,000 km (more than 6,200 miles).

If you go to Ford's promotional Web site for the Ford Focus RS500, you can even find videos of Ford WRC driver Mikko Hirvonen wheeling the car through the countryside and around the track.

The Henry Ford Strategy
Henry Ford would have been especially pleased with one aspect of the RS500. That's because you can have any color you like as long as it's matte black. The RS500 is painted Panther Black, an existing Ford metallic color, before it's shipped to a 3M facility near Frankfurt, Germany. There, a clear "frost" wrap is applied that gives the paint its stealthy appearance.

Owners will be provided a large sheet of this wrap for repairing stone chips and minor dings, while bigger scrapes can be repaired at 3M facilities across Europe. It's an intriguing solution even if its long-term practicality remains unproven.

The RS500's 19-inch rims are also finished in black, with the only dashes of color provided by the red brake calipers, blue RS badges and blue-and-red RS500 script on the trunk. The aesthetics might have taken their inspiration from a stealth bomber, but that's where the comparison ends. Nothing this side of a new Ferrari garners so much attention on British roads.

The cabin has a few trinkets to separate it from the RS norm. There is a new carbon-effect fascia trim that looks even less like carbon fiber than trim for the standard Focus RS. Red stitching adorns the steering wheel, shift lever and floor mats, and if you're feeling decadent you can indulge in some leather-upholstered red Recaros, which may or may not be a good thing. The rest of the cabin is classic Focus, save for a little plaque identifying which of the 500 cars you've purchased.

Collectible Focus
Ford is actually building 512 examples of the 2010 Ford RS500, with the 12 extra cars being used as sacrificial test cars for the media. Ours bore the unique license plate, "PR001." This cute fact will no doubt make an interesting quiz question at an RS owners club meet in 2050, when they'll no doubt be recalling the classic that was the Focus RS500.

At first glance, the price of $54,200 looks ludicrous. A standard RS costs $14K less and for $3,200 Mountune will fit the engine upgrades to an existing car without compromising the official Ford warranty. The RS500 is therefore not a rational purchase, but that's unlikely to worry the 500 customers who ordered theirs without so much as a test-drive. The car has even been proving attractive to speculators, with "new" cars appearing on the Web priced at over $60,000.

With the 2010 Ford Focus RS500, a lucky few in Europe will find themselves in possession of a car that's an exclamation mark in the history of performance Fords. Given the success of this RS, we might expect a nutty version of the new global Focus, but whether it will match the unabashed lunacy of this model is open to debate. For now, we should simply rejoice that a mainstream manufacturer has had the confidence and the sense of humor to build such a brilliant car.

Edmunds attended a manufacturer-sponsored event, to which selected members of the press were invited, to facilitate this report.