2018 Ford Focus RS Gets a $5,000 Price Hike, Sort Of

Timothy Cain
by Timothy Cain

2018 will be the final year for the current iteration of the Ford Focus RS.

Shed a tear.

Now shed another tear for the old base price, because the old base Focus RS is done, CarsDirect says. For 2018, Ford is equipping every U.S.-bound edition of the Focus RS with a limited slip differential, the RS2 package, and 19-inch wheels.

As a result, the $36,995 2017 Ford Focus RS gives way to a $41,995 2018 Ford Focus RS.

Paging the Civic Type R. Civic Type R to the showroom.

Nah, probably not. The Focus RS will be thin on the ground for 2018. With only 1,000 copies imported to the U.S. from the Focus RS’s plant in Saarlouis, Germany, sufficient demand even at the full bore price is all but assured.

The $41,995 MSRP is uncomfortably high for muscle car fans. Ford’s Mustang GT, a 5.0-liter V8-powered coupe, stickers from $34,095. Even selecting the performance package barely ticks the Mustang GT’s price past $37K. The Mustang EcoBoost, which shares a powerplant with the Focus RS, is a whole ‘nuther, less expensive matter.

But while cross-shopping of the Mustang and Focus RS may occur, drawing parallels between Ford’s all-wheel-drive compact hatch and the rear-wheel-drive pony car is a mostly fruitless exercise.

The final 1,000 copies of the Ford Focus RS will more likely be purchased or leased because customers preferred the Ford over the Volkswagen Golf R, the sedan-only Subaru WRX STI, and the front-wheel-drive Honda Civic Type R, pricing for which has not yet been firmly announced. (Recent revelations lead us to believe the MSRP will slide in just under $35,000 for the 306-horsepower Civic hatch.)

Further suggesting demand won’t be a problem for the final 1,000 Focus RSs, CNET’s Roadshow reported a few months ago that Ford was selling around 500 copies of the Focus RS each month. The 2018 models may not last long at all.

The new $41,995 base price likely won’t be a problem, either. Road Show said the Focus RS’s average transaction price was $42,351.

[Image: Ford]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.

Timothy Cain
Timothy Cain

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  • BrunoT BrunoT on Jun 10, 2017

    Looks fun enough, but at over $40K you're into really nice CPO luxury brand material, cars that won't drop like rocks in value either. Consider that the ST version is, real world, exactly half the price, and this looks even worse.

    • JohnTaurus JohnTaurus on Jul 16, 2017

      Oh look, its another "I could buy a used ____ for that!". Okay, go get yourself a used CLA and enjoy your badge whoring. Luxury cars are some of the fastest depreciating vehicles out there, by the way. A (very) limited production sports car? Not so much. Give it a few years and low-mileage, unabused examples will be selling for more than they did new.

  • Bazza Bazza on Jun 11, 2017

    Overhyped, too harsh on the softest road settings, and as it turns out a bit too brittle with the RDU weak link. Ford really sold the development of the RS...preproduction videos and all...but ultimately it fell a bit short and the hype died quickly. It's fortunate that the production numbers are low enough to make it seem "in demand" and drive that ADP. I really want to like cars such as the RS. However, they're mostly just a reminder that Europeans pay way too much for even a modicum of performance. That doesn't translate well over here, and having Ford on the nameplate makes it even more problematic.

  • Joe This is called a man in the middle attack and has been around for years. You can fall for this in a Starbucks as easily as when you’re charging your car. Nothing new here…
  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
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