Ford Focus RS Revealed at BIMS

Unlike the environmental shade of green, the much anticipated Ford Focus RS showed a mean green shade for its public debut at the British International Motor Show yesterday. Outside of Ford's previous announcement, little new info has emerged. However, the fanatical RS disciples at CarTribe.co.uk uncovered a few extra morsels.

While stalking the spinning Focus RS stand, CarTribe uncovered that the RS is expected to hit a Nurburgring time very close to the record setting Renault Megane R26.R. The RS has also been spending some quality time at the Ford test track in Lommel, Belgium as well as the Nardo track in Italy.

While recently testing at Nardo, the Ford's RS Team, managed to procure a Ferrari California as a benchmark vehicle where the RS posted identical times.

Learning from mistakes past. the RS Team is well aware that 280 bhp is a lot of mustard to put through the front wheels. As a result, they have enlisted the help of a specially designed suspension dubbed RevoKnuckle that works with the Quaife limited slip differential in order to avoid torque steer. Unlike the preceding Mk 1 Focus RS, torque output will be limited in the first three gears. CarTribe states, its purely to manage gearbox wear, but perhaps to also aid the torque steer fighting RevoKnuckle.

With still 6 months remaining of development work and a market debut in early 2009, we expect the 5000 units to go quickly, regardless of how it performs.