Torture Test: 2016 Ford Focus RS
By: Jack Baruth
Source: Road and Track
EVERY TOURING MUSICIAN KNOWS that you don't play your biggest song until the end of the set. Can you imagine going to an a-ha concert where they opened with "Take on Me"? (Millennials, you're free to substitute the Lumineers and "Ho Hey," respectively.) Of course not. If they did, fans would head for the exits as soon as the song ended to spend the rest of the evening chilling with Netflix.
Rules were meant to be broken, however. So we'll start our adventure with the Ford Focus RS with its best-known hit: Drift mode. The question we've been asked more than any other regarding this car is, "How's that Drift mode work?" Answer: Not that well.
The name "Drift mode" suggests that just pressing a button will turn you, the newly minted Focus RS owner, into a master drifter, capable of effortlessly entering every rock-walled mountain hairpin with your back bumper parallel to the shoulder, road ahead visible through your side windows, rear wheels smoke-screening adoring fans clustered by the roadside.
In reality, Drift mode is a calibration for stability control that will allow more yaw angle while still, in theory, preventing you from spinning. If you somehow manage to get the Focus RS sideways, Drift mode won't snap your tail back into line the way most competitive-or track-mode calibrations will.
But it won't much help you start the drift. And that's a problem, seeing as how the Focus RS could use some help in that department. As a consequence of its front-wheel-drive, compact-car roots, the RS has 60 percent of its weight over the front wheels, which affects potential drifts the same way that putting two paper clips on the nose of a paper airplane affects its flight path. Left to its own devices, the Ford wants to straighten up and fly right.
Any car will slide the back end if you can get the rear wheels to spin under power. In most driving conditions, the all-wheel-drive RS still sends the vast majority of its torque to the front wheels, even in the launch-control setting that allows hassle-free 5000-rpm clutch drops. Add the $1990 Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tire package, as supplied on our test car, and you've got too much grip to drift on command.
So there you have it. We've played the hit right up front. All the would-be Hoonigans and tofu-delivery drivers can now click around to the myriad of other articles on this website. There are many good ones. The rest of you can stick around.
This Focus, the first Ford to wear the fabled blue RS badge in the United States, has a deep and impressive back catalog. It promises to be one of the most versatile performance cars on the market. To see how well the car delivers on that promise, we departed from our usual test-drive procedure, taking the mega-Focus on a nonstop three-day Labor Day weekend tour. The plan was to cover nearly 1700 miles, substituting hot laps and autocross cones for rest stops. Along the way, we'd meet the devoted enthusiasts who have been pining for the RS. All that's assuming, of course, that we don't center-punch a tire wall, roll the thing trying to drift on gravel roads, or just drop from exhaustion.
THE PARKING LOT AT THE AMC LENNOX theater sports bright-yellow No Football Parking signs at every entrance, but the police officer directing traffic at the stoplight has no trouble distinguishing our Nitrous blue RS from the endless stream of scarlet-and-gray-clad Ohio State fans trudging toward the football stadium a half-mile distant. He waves us through before delivering a stern wag of the finger to a bright-red F-150 festooned with multiple Buckeyes flags that is trying to follow.
Columbus hosts two regular Cars and Coffee meetups. One attracts the three-previous-owners-Gallardo crowd. We've decided on the other, more blue-collar, event. As we idle slowly past a line of bug-eyed WRXs and home-restored Sixties iron, the distinctive deep rumble of the 2.3-liter EcoBoost vibrating the twin megaphone exhaust outlets, somebody appears from behind a brand-new GT350 and starts waving furiously. "Park over here!" he cries.
Over the next hour, it becomes apparent that the Focus RS has what is called "crossover appeal" in the music business. The rally-replica guys with their tuned Subarus swarm in, iPhones pointed at the italic RS logos that are sprinkled everywhere from the front bumper to the monstrous rear wing to the keyless-entry remote. The fact that the Focus also wears an American Blue Oval doesn't bother them in the slightest. Many of them read the European car press avidly; they realize that although this looks like a tarted-up hatchback from Dearborn, it's actually a German car (built in Saarlouis, close to the French border) from the storied RS brand, which has been rolling out iconic sport compacts for decades.
What's more surprising is to see the interest the muscle-car crowd has in this squatting, squared-off blue beast. They don't know the specs, and they don't know that the RS logo is synonymous with the fastest of Fords across the Atlantic Ocean, but they know a serious car when they see one. These fellows are a bit older, and they express concerns at the big-bolstered cloth and leather Recaros. "Hard to get out of," a fifty-something man puffs after extricating himself from beneath the squared-off bottom of the RS's steering wheel, "but, man, it's hot stuff."
As the football traffic around the area starts to calm down, the lot fills up with GTIs and plastidipped sport bikes. There's even a four-car posse of highly modified Dodge Darts. "Hardly any faster than a Stage 3 SRT-4 from 12 years ago," sniffs a man in a Mopar-branded T-shirt. "But, man, look at that color," he notes admiringly, echoing a comment that we'll hear dozens of times over the weekend.
WE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN SOME COFFEE at the Cars and Coffee, because we have a three-hour slog ahead of us. Luckily, the RS has long freeway legs. There are four drive modes accessible from a button on the center console. You want Normal for any stint longer than five minutes. It calms the burbling exhaust, although you'll always be able to hear the unique intake that draws directly from the space between the hood and the engine cover. It also softens the dampers just enough that the big Michelins glide over big bumps.
Here, once again, is that crossover appeal, this time into the territory typically held by German cars that do not bear the Blue Oval on their wide-mouthed snouts. The Focus RS has all the virtues of a 2-series BMW: strong motor, stiff body structure, pitch-black interior, snug seats.
That customer demographic will probably also be okay with the idea that the Focus RS is easy prey for the eagles and hawks of freeway roll-racing. You can't get 350 hp out of a 2.3-liter four without suffering some turbo lag, and, even when the boost is on the boil, there's still the matter of moving 3500 pounds. It isn't so much that the focus can't keep up pace in a third-gear dustup with a similarly priced Camaro SS or the home-team Mustang GT. The problem comes when you line up against something considerably less ferocious, like an Accord V-6 coupe, and can't pull on it. I remember having the same kind of problem with my Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 many years ago.
Our destination is that most sacred and secluded of rural midwestern institutions. Google Maps won't quite take you there. There are no signs to mark the way or even to point out the entrance. Bill Stewart, a Nelson Ledges veteran who is manning the flag tower for our afternoon on track, recalls, "the first time I came here, in the Seventies . . . well, I'd read about it, and I knew about where it was, but it took me a while to actually find the place." This is no country-club track. This is Nelson Ledges.
We are here at the invitation of Jason Franklin and his Excitement Tour, a Bullrun-style rally that somehow raises money for children's charities by letting a bunch of guys in sticker-covered Mustangs and Camaros run wild around a racetrack. Approximately 40 vehicles will be participating in a sort of timed driver's-education event. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but Franklin has assured me that he'll squeeze us in. Insofar as he is both a career police officer and quite buffed-out, I'm not inclined to ask any further questions.
The RS might have been easy meat for those pony cars on the freeway, but after our first session around Ledges, it's quite clear that the shoe is on the other foot here. Short gearing keeps the 2.3 EcoBoost in the meat of its powerband. And though we're dealing with summer temperatures, there's never any significant problem with heat soak or intake temperature. No, we can't keep up with the ZL1 Camaros on the back straight, but they're braking hard for the infamous Kink that follows, while we're sailing through with the speedometer planted on 120 and the trapezoid grille following the racing line like there's a groove in the track and a pin in the subframe to follow it.
We're making up time on the brakes, too. Big Brembo front calipers are very effective at shedding speed and heat simultaneously. GT350 and GT350R aside, this is the best-braking Ford for sale right now. And the Sport Cup 2 tires that make drifting such a hassle? Pure magic on a racetrack. At one point, I find myself behind a Lotus Exige Sport on Hoosiers going into Ledges' ultrafast Turn 1. When his tail wobbles a bit on corner entry, I worry I've written an entry-speed check that my available grip can't cash. But just a little extra mid-corner throttle and the RS sends the power to the back wheels, balances out the chassis behavior to neutral, and sends me on my merry way. This drivetrain apportions torque with the intelligence and sensitivity of Vladimir Horowitz working a fortissimo passage.
Nelson Ledges has two primary qualities for which it has become justifiably famous. The first is the average speed, which is very high. At one point Ledges billed itself as "the Fastest Course in the East," and if you look at a track map, it's easy to see why. The second is the track surface, which is very narrow by modern standards and, despite upgrades over the last decade, still quite rough. Over three hours, a variety of high-powered muscle cars actually bounce off track and into the weeds. Yet the RS is unflappable, able to go full throttle over a series of broken pavement seams.
Back in the paddock, a queue awaits the Focus. I spend the afternoon giving three-lap tours to more than 30 groups of people, never stopping for more than 60 seconds. Grueling work for both of us, but the only concession required by my track mule is that I turn off the auto-stop function that causes the engine to shut down (and stop circulating coolant) at lights. I'm not babying the car: At the end of the day, a participant says he's been timing the RS and that, had we been officially competing in the rally, a few laps would have netted second or third place.
After three hours of playing 'Ring Taxi in late-afternoon heat, the visor on my helmet has a mountainscape of dried sweat. Our photographer decides it's time to capture drift shots. What follows is an hour of the worst abuse a car can suffer: repeated 90-degree left-handers at 85 mph or more, hitting the curb with two wheels, e-brake pulled. This would get you killed in some cars, but the RS responds with a mild tail slide that straightens the moment I release the steering wheel. This is a benign, predictable car, easy to operate at the limit of its capabilities. Call it the Cessna 172 of performance cars. Not the kind of thing that lends itself to ad copy?"Drift mode" sounds better?but it's worthy of unfettered respect.
WE'RE PACKED AND ON THE ROAD out of Ledges by 6:45 p.m., a short (ha!) 500 miles to Bowling Green, Kentucky, home of NCM Motorsports Park and, this weekend, an SCCA autocross
event. Thankfully, we pick up an extra hour from crossing into Central time, allowing us to get just less than 300 minutes of sleep before hitting the road the next morning. I'm not the world's greatest autocrosser, so I've brought my brother Mark, who has picked up a few trophies on the SCCA Solo Nationals tour, to give his opinion on the competitiveness of the RS. Not that I've provided him the best example. Our tires are chewed up by the relentless lapping, not to mention some impromptu dirt-road misbehavior. Still, we're here to compete.
This is the first RS that anybody in the Kentucky Region of the SCCA has seen, but as we park and bleed the brakes, we're approached by two different people who have one on order. They are intensely curious to see what we can do with the car. The Focus ST has a good reputation as a Street-class autocrosser, thanks to a torquey engine and a chassis that isn't quite as addicted to understeer as that of the average hot hatch. Do the additional drivetrain hardware and turbo lag spoil the party?
Every time we walk away from the car, we come back to see a gaggle of competitors giving it close scrutiny. The autocrossers are excited about the optional forged aluminum wheels, which save about two pounds compared with the standard nineteens; the first thing most serious SCCA Solo people do with a new car is throw away the stock wheels and get the lightest replacements possible. They're less impressed by the stereo amplifier and subwoofer set into Styrofoam pockets beneath the cargo floor. "Hate to carry that weight," one man notes, frowning.
Once again, it's hot. Our schedule calls for 18 launch-control starts, usually with less than five minutes between runs, but the RS only complains once, displaying a high-engine-temperature warning when one of us switches it off right after a full-throttle blast and then turns it back on four minutes later. Launch control does exactly what it promises.
Over the course of 12 runs, Mark and I find that it's quickest to put the car in Track mode and then press the stability-control button for a few seconds, which removes the worst of the power-robbing stability control interventions while keeping the shocks tuned for hard cornering.
The SCCA has the Focus classed into B Street against cars like the Honda S2000 and first-gen Porsche Boxster S. I think that's a punitive move. The RS has more power, but it sends most of it to the front wheels, which bear most of the car's weight. But when we minimize steering input and brake early to give the front wheels a chance to grab traction, the RS performs well. And it looks brilliant, lifting the inside rear wheel every chance it gets.
My brother and I are the only entrants in the B Street Shuffle today, but the SCCA has a calculation to allow drivers to compare their performance across classes; measured that way, the Focus RS and I were 13th out of 85 competitors overall. Had we been classed into D Street, which is where Mark and a lot of other veteran autocrossers think the RS will end up, it would have finished third of 85. It ran a couple seconds faster than the best-driven Focus STs. In autocross, that's an eternity, and it speaks to the comprehensive chassis upgrades of the RS as well as to the extra power.
THIS IS THE FIRST FRONT-DRIVE-BIASED car I've ever driven in this situation," says the man in the black polo shirt. We're hanging out with the Skip Barber crew for their Two Day Advanced Racing School, and one of the instructors asks to take it for a spin around their parking-lot cone course. He's in charge of evaluating the cars used by the school; when one of the students reports a problem, the car goes to him. So he's got a micrometer for a mind and calipers for hands. Yet his first lap is a grinding exercise in uncontrollable full-throttle understeer.
After a few laps, he gets the rhythm, backs off midcorner, and starts going quickly. "Love the torque," he says. "Great shifter, great brakes. You know, it's got the feel of a genuine motorsport-focused vehicle. It's not like some tuned-up compact. It's special."
That verdict?"special"?is the best way to describe the Focus RS, and unique praise for a performance variant of a commodity car. From the highly modified suspension to the stout engine to the constellation of RS badging, this hatchback constantly reminds you what it is. Special doesn't come cheap. The RS carries a $10,000 premium over the ST, but when you compare it with other cars that share a similar mojo, like Ford's own GT350R or even the Ferrari 458 Speciale, it's a bargain.
If all you ever did was drive the Focus RS to work and back, you'd love it for the noise, the aesthetics, the forthright drama. But there's real capability behind the flashy upgrades. It can run around a track all day then blast through a whole state's worth of freeway to the next adventure. It doesn't get tired, doesn't overheat, doesn't give up. It will even restart automatically if you stall it off the line, something I discovered because I got tired enough after three long days to bog it in a drive-thru on the way back home.
What more could you ask for? This is more than just a computer-programmed hot hatch. It's an exhaustively engineered love letter to a new generation of fast-Ford fans. We could end there, except that when I return to the main building at NCM, the students from that day's activities are all waiting, every- body asking the same thing in a chorus ranging from piping to stentorian:
"How's that Drift mode?"
