Ford Focus RS Gets Closer to the US

The rumors that a sporty version of the popular Focus will make its way to the United States began surfacing in the media since early 2009, but now the carmaker strengthens the idea by bringing its European RS and American SVT performance divisions together under one man’s leadership.

Among its responsibilities, Jost Capito (legendary sports car driver), the man in charge with the newly formed branch, will be also establishing performance vehicles that can be sold on multiple continents.

In a recent interview with Automobile, when asked whether the Americans will get to enjoy next-generation Ford Focus RS, Capito said “I think we have two different things. We have regional performance vehicles and we have global performance vehicles. We are fully agreed on global performance vehicles, you need one nomenclature.“

“We see that the RS already has got quite the following in the U.S., so there would be nothing wrong in calling it RS globally. Each car should have only one nomenclature [globally], but I don’t see RS in Europe going away, and I don’t see SVT in the U.S. going away,” he added.

“When you see the global vehicle lines, they offer the opportunity of global performance vehicles. The two generations of Focus we’ve had so far [internationally] were great bases for performance vehicles. The new Focus is the same, so there’s no reason if there’s one in Europe, it wouldn’t be here.”

It was recently reported that the next-generation Ford Focus RS will be equipped with a new 2.0L 4-cylinder EcoBoost direct-injection that will produce close to 300-hp, replacing the current 2.5L 5-cylinder turbo.