WELLINGTON: The just-revealed Ford Focus RS won’t be the only Ford to utilise a sophisticated torque-vectoring AWD system, with a company executive all but confirming that the clever drivetrain will be applied to other models in the near future.
Speaking to British mag Autocar, Ford RS engineering manager Tyrone Johnson said the potential was there for RS AWD tech to be applied more broadly within Ford’s product portfolio.
“It would be fair to suggest that we’ll be looking to use the technology in other ways in the future,” he said.
Able to take up to 70 percent of torque to the rear axle and direct up to 100 percent of that between the left and right wheels, Ford claims the Focus RS can generate in excess of 1G in cornering force and is almost entirely resistant to understeer.
But as for as what will be the next recipient of the Focus RS’ AWD hardware, Johnson isn’t saying.
A halo model for the Mondeo range is a possibility, while a sports version of the Kuga SUV (which uses the same platform as the Focus) could also conceivably benefit from such AWD hardware.
However Autocar’s report states that the rumoured Fiesta RS would likely remain FWD, with an AWD drivetrain ruled out due to added cost and weight.
Meanwhile, Ford has also confirmed that the Focus RS will remain a manual-only proposition – at least for the forseeable future.
Speaking to the media at the unveiling of the Focus RS, Ford’s VP of product development Raj Nair said that customers had an expectation that high-performance small cars like the Focus RS be equipped with a manual transmission..
“All our current research says that customers really like these kinds of cars to have a manual gearbox,” he said.
“We’ll keep looking at market trends, and of course we’ll give customers what they want, but for now the manual stays.”
