FORD MK1 FOCUS RS

We've had our ups and downs over the years, but two decades after its launch, the Mk1 Focus RS finally achieves solid gold evo icon status. Or does it?

- PETER TOMALIN

AH, THE MK1 FOCUS RS. IT'S FAIR TO SAY WE'VE had something of a rollercoaster relationship with Ford's early-noughties superhatch over the years - and on more than one occasion it's been a genuine whiteknuckle ride. Dickie Meaden was first to drive it back in 2002, on the handling circuit at Ford's Lommel proving ground in Belgium (issue 048). His conclusion: that the RS's 'ground-breaking fusion of front-drive hot hatch ability and packaging with the punch, presence and performance of an all-wheel-drive rally-bred saloon makes it everything we were expecting and more'. Five stars and cigars all round? Not quite...

In the same issue we took another example to the Yorkshire Dales with a Clio Cup, Cooper S and Impreza WRX for company, and the Ford struggled with the occasionally lumpen topography, the stiff ride proving bruising, the torque steer distracting. It was much better, though, on smooth tarmac. 'When it works, the Focus RS does so truly brilliantly,' wrote John Barker, and we gave it a slightly hedging-our-bets four stars.

Then at the 2002 evo Car of the Year another Ford supplied car proved a torque-steering liability. 'On an open, bumpy road, every time you get on the gas it feels like you've lit a firework,' we said. 'When will the bang arrive? And which way is it going to go?' The Focus, it transpired in the months and years that followed, was particularly sensitive to set-up and sub-par tyres. There were also rumours that Quaife made unpublicised mods to the diff to endow the car with even more grip on a racetrack. After subsequently driving a couple of well-behaved cars supplied by owners, we bumped the star rating up to four and a half, but a few months later an extensive test of another privately owned car seemed to confirm all our worst early impressions and the RS was demoted to the ignominy of three stars, where it stayed for years.