Ford Builds 300hp Focus RS for 20 Markets. U.S. Not One of Them
America may be generally averse to the hatchback genre, but hot hatches are a different matter. VW’s stellar GTI sold well enough stateside– after VeeDub eventually got around to bringing over the current gen. As Berkowitz will tell you, they would have sold even more uber-Golfs if the model was anything like reliable, if VW dealers weren’t such NSFWs and the starting price was a few thousand lower. OK, the Saturn Astra flopped, the Audi A3 just stood there, watching and even the hideous, horrendous U.S.-spec Ford Focus sells best in its four-door iteration. Hmm. What was I saying? Ah yes, the Euro-Focus RS. They’re starting to build them in Germany, and pistonheads on the other side of the pond are all abuzz. John Fleming, FoMoCo’s Europe’s CEO stokes the stoked. “We’ve had a huge amount of interest in this model from the loyal army of Ford RS enthusiasts as well as potential customers who have never owned an RS before. I am confident that they will fall for it the moment they get behind the wheel.” Which, for us in the U.S., is never.
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"You’re right that hatches don’t sell well. We got some truly awful hatchbacks in the 1980s, and I think that memories of the likes of the Omni, Chevette, Aspire, Festiva, Pony, Excel and Le Mans are going to take a while to seep out of our collective conscious." I think that's an urban legend. Some of those cars didn't sell well because they were crappy, not because they were hatches. My wife and I agree that one of our favorite cars from the past was our Omni GLH Turbo. Great carrying capacity, good driving dynamics and it could suck the doors off most other cars of the era.
Eh, the Astra then brought over here was too slow, too pricey and had no support for mp3 players -- if they'd fixed two of those, I would have bought it instead of the Versa (which had a better price and support for mp3 players.) I would have gone right to the 4-door GTI if I didn't value reliability. And the A3? Too much money, period, and too big. Yet I see them all over the place here in LA.
@niky : The Mazda3 may be similar, but if you’ve driven both cars back to back, there’s no way you would say that it was just as good. The Focus has a stiffer chassis (allowing them the same stability even with a softer suspension), a better steering rack, and a more sublime suspension set-up. I have driven several Euro-Foci and an Euro-spec Mazda3, and they don't feel even remotely the same. Where the Mazda is slightly bumpy, the Focus was serene, steering feel in the Focus is better, seats are better, satnav is better, the Sony stereo in the Focus blows the Mazda's Bose out of the water, there's more room on the back seat, trunk space is 33% more than in the 3, it's easier to load because the hatch is so wide...