The Ford Focus RS is already a certified giant killer, but even giant killers can be made quicker. Not content with its work on the Fiesta ST, British tuning house Mountune has turned its hand to the hottest hatch in the Ford Performance stable, making it faster out of the blocks than a base Porsche 911 in the process.
Out of the factory, the 2.3-liter EcoBoost fitted in the Focus RS puts out a healthy 350 hp (261 kW) of power and 475 Nm of torque, enough for a 4.7 second sprint to 100 km/h (62 mph). Although that's significantly quicker than the pack of regular front-drive hot hatches, it's still down compared to the performance offered by the (admittedly more expensive) Mercedes A45 AMG and Audi RS3.
Mountune's tweaks mean (on paper at least ) the Focus RS is on a level playing field with the Mercedes and Audi's hyper hatches. Power jumps to 375 hp (280 kW) and torque is boosted to 510 Nm, slicing 0.2 seconds from the car's sprint time. The boost come courtesy of a high-performance air filter, bespoke alloy crossover duct, an upgraded air re-circulation valve and bespoke ECU mapping.
According to Ford, the drop is enough to make the car quicker than a base mode 911 Carrera, despite costing half as much. Porsche is notorious for underselling its cars on paper, so we're not sure the Focus would actually show the 911 a clean set of heels on the drag strip, but the fact we're mentioning a family hatch in the same breath as the legendary rear-engine sports car is still impressive.
With that said, it's still not quite as fast as the German hyper hatches in a straight line. Blame the car's manual gearbox, which trades precious tenths for precious driver involvement.
The Mountune upgrade takes one and a half hours to fit, and is fully backed by the standard Ford warranty. Pricing starts at £899 in the UK, but there's no word on whether the package will be offered in the USA.
Source: Ford