If you thought that the 350 horsepower, all-wheel drive Ford Focus RS was the end-all be-all of the Blue Oval’s hot hatch ambitions, you are sorely mistaken. As amazing a machine as it is, on the FIA World Rallycross circuit, a factory-stock Focus RS doesn’t stand much of a chance against the heavily-modded racing machines other automakers are putting out.
Enter the Focus RS RX, a prescription for all of your RallyCross needs. Born from a collaboration between U.K.-based M-Sport and Hoonigan Racing Division, Ford Performance engineers have implemented the same high-tech instruments and procedures used on production vehicles to develop the Focus RS RX for competition, and they’ve made a behind-the-scenes video to show off their hard work.
“Project RX” is a four part video series following Ford’s work on the Focus RS RX, and part one dropped earlier this week. Hoonigan Racing drivers Ken Block and Andreas Bakkerud played a critical role in the development of the vehicle, providing insight from the driver’s perspective to be implemented in the build, similar to Block’s input during development of the street-legal Focus RS.
The video highlights the teamwork between Hoonigan Racing and M-Sport, as well as Ford’s increasingly global perspective on its vehicle platforms. The Ford Mustang was really just the first salvo of the automaker’s “One Ford” vision, and the new Focus RS is helping tie together the automaker’s worldwide ambitions.
Though it may be a small part of the puzzle, the Focus RS RX racer is helping unite the many moving pieces of Ford’s global framework, and these behind-the-scenes videos really drive home the point that the Blue Oval is thinking bigger and bigger.