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AWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes Peak

Remember Tony Quinn, the guy who in April crashed his Lamborghini Huracan at the Targa Tasmania? Well, check out his new ride!
AWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes Peak 12 photos
Photo: PACE Inovations
AWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes PeakAWD Ford Focus With GT-R Engine Plans to Race at Pikes Peak
It might be just a Ford Focus, but it's got even more power than the Italian supercar and could be one of the top competitors at this year's Pikes Peak hill climb race.

The Focus hatchback is fully custom built to take advantage of the unlimited class. It looks like the only original part on the whole car is the windshield, as everything else is made from carbon fiber and tubular steel.

Like it says in the title, the power comes from something special, a tuned 3.8-liter VR38DETT taken from the Nissan R35 GT-R and rebuilt by Craig Hasted. It now produces a very competitive 850 horsepower and 976 Nm of torque on 20 psi of boost.

Like nearly all cars at Pikes Peak, the engine is situated in the middle of the car, right behind the driver. This creates better balance and frees up space for more complex front aerodynamics. Similar to the GT-R, the power is shuffled around in a weird way.

From the back, it's sent to the Holinger MFT six-speed sequential transaxle in the front of the car and then back again to the rear differential.

The aerodynamics of the car are there to give it downforce. It's said that at 120 mph, the air pushes down on the car with slightly greater force than the weight of the car. The mad little Focus was put together by PACE Innovations in Yatala QLD, Australia.

As you can see from the videos below, it has already made its debut in New Zealand's 2015 Repco Race to the Sky. However, Pikes Peak will be an entirely different thing, as Tony will be going up against seasoned professional drivers like Romain Dumas in a Norma M20 and Mike Skeen in a Radical RXC Turbo 500.



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About the author: Mihnea Radu
Mihnea Radu profile photo

Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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