Mar 2nd, 2010 by Ross Edwards
Ford has announced that it will combine the American and European high-performance divisions it currently has into one. Rather than working simultaneously on different high-performance versions of Ford cars, the talents of both divisions can be combined to bring better cars onto the market faster. This seems like a real no-brainer, until you realize that Ford has sold completely different cars in Europe and America over the past few years. Ford is changing that, and according to Autoblog, the first Ford car in years to be built for the entire world, the Focus, will also be the first target of Ford’s new high-performance division.
Ford recently unveiled the next generation of the Focus, which will be a “global car” that is basically the same all over the world. A global Focus will save Ford a ton of money that would otherwise have been spent designing, engineering and manufacturing a different Focus for each different market. Ford caught a lot of flack from automotive journalists and car enthusiasts for the decision to develop a new Focus for Europe and not renew the American version.
No details have been released about the hot rod Focus, but Autoblog is pretty sure that it will be a hatchback. The souped-up Focus will probably use Ford’s new EcoBoost four-cylinder engine. It’s a good bet that Ford will try to beat the Mazdaspeed 3’s horsepower, which would put the new Focus near 300 hp. The name of the high-performance Focus also remains to be seen. SVT, RS and ST have all been used recently.
Picture via Autoblog.
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