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2009 Ford Focus RS Re-Revealed

Déjà vu? You better believe it! Having already revealed its upcoming and highly anticipated ’09 Focus RS at this year’s London Motor Show in July, the folks from Ford are so excited that they are planning to whip the covers off the ‘green-me


Déjà vu? You better believe it! Having already revealed its upcoming and highly anticipated ’09 Focus RS at this year’s London Motor Show in July, the folks from Ford are so excited that they are planning to whip the covers off the ‘green-meanie’ once again – in Paris.

The city of romance and overpriced espressos will be the venue for the second coming of Ford’s hottest hatch, when it is once again rolled out for public consumption at the Paris Motor Show next month.

Ford has added some spice to the second reveal, with some new-tech goss and a bunch of new images that provide us with even more insight into its new hi-po debutante.

We already know and like the fact that the '09 Focus RS will be powered by a turbocharged Duratec 2.5L five-cylinder, producing about 221kW/300hp and 440Nm. Enough mumbo to see it hit 100km/h from a standstill in under five seconds, on its way to a v-max of 260km/h (160mph).

What has been a mystery until now, is just how Ford will run 440Nm through the front wheels of the RS, without turning it into a torque steering handfull. The answer is an innovative front suspension system known as a 'RevoKnuckle', which the folks from Ford will tell you is, “designed to reduce unwanted steering disturbance and torque steer” .

The RevoKnuckle works in conjunction with a Quaife Automatic Torque Biasing limited-slip differential, and Ford has retained the simplicity of a traditional McPherson strut arrangement, but with geometry settings that minimise steering disturbances and torque steer, principally a reduction in steering offset.

"We studied at length how best to enhance these qualities for a high performance model. Our work has shown clearly our approach in combining a tuned RevoKnuckle with the Quaife differential is an ideal solution for a high performance front-wheel-drive road car like Focus RS,” said Ford of Europe's Vehicle Line Director for Performance Vehicles, Jost Capito.

Capito confirmed that the RS development team scratched any notion of a weighty AWD drivetrain, early in the development cycle of the RS.

The RS will be available in a choice of three colours, Ultimate Green, Performance Blue and Frozen White, with the first UK deliveries expected to get underway in early 2009. Check out the image gallery below for a bunch of new official pics, including detail close-ups and shots of the RS’s Recaro interior.

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