Earlier this month, on the sidelines of a Q&A French outlet Caradisiac had with Ford of Europe executives, the outlet got bad news about the Mk4 Focus RS. Spotted by Motor1, the French site’s report opened with, “Ford has confirmed to Caradisiac (translated) that the fourth generation of the Focus will not be entitled to an overpowered RS version. We must therefore be content with ST.”
Even though we were never going to get a fourth-gen Focus RS here, this is regrettable news for enthusiasts everywhere. We knew the RS was on the ropes due to Europe’s CO2 emissions mandates that require automakers to meet a fleetwide average of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer next year or face heinous fines. It seems Ford’s engineering team had an impossible time getting the powertrain, emissions, and finances to meet in an agreeable place. Add Ford’s ongoing restructuring and the latest turn in world events, and maintaining the effort couldn’t be justified.
A December report in Car said Ford had been trying to stick with the 2.3-liter EcoBoost turbo four-cylinder from the third-gen, 360-horsepower Focus RS, hybridized with a 48-volt system in order to decrease emissions and launching sometime late this year. In that scenario, the four-pot would turn the front wheels, a compact electric motor sourced from GKN would turn the rears. Combined output would ring up something like 400 horsepower, with brief spurts of overboost enabled by an RS button on the steering wheel.
Come February, Autocar reported a Ford exec admitting “the mild hybrid is not enough” to meet the automaker’s fleet emissions requirements when the outgoing car’s emissions were 175 g/km. The new plan was to start with the 2.5-liter Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder and e-motor in the Escape PHEV, which make a combined 222 hp and emit 29 g/km of CO2. If all worked out, the ICE would contribute 300 hp, the e-motor adding another 100 hp to retain the original output target. The launch date had allegedly been pushed back to either 2022 or 2023. But it isn’t cheap to turn an eco-minded powertrain into a high-performance eco-minded drivetrain that would respect the curb weight and price limits of a Focus RS.
And at the same time that Ford of Europe is in the midst of closing six production facilities and canceling mainstream yet slow-selling vehicles like the C-Max minivan and Ka+ supermini, justification for a big spend on a compact halo car was hard to come by. Add the coronavirus pandemic and economic meltdown, and it’s easy to see why we’re here.
So for now the buck stops at the 280-hp Focus ST. Caradisiac says Ford could decide to squeeze out “a more radical variant” of the ST, which would be grand. But it wouldn’t be an RS.
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