New Ford Focus RS in doubt?

Rumours of an all-new Ford Focus RS have been doing the rounds in the European motoring press for the past couple of years, but Ford Europe boss Stephen Odell has, at least for now, poured cold water on prospects of a new flagship hot-hatch.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he told UK’s Autocar magazine. “It’s great that we have a proud past with RS, and it’s clear it has acted as a halo product and a way of linking to our racing programmes, but for now there is nothing to say.”

Recent reports in the European media indicated the third-gen Focus RS was close to being signed off and that it would ditch the previous model’s sonorous 2.5-litre turbo five-cylinder engine in favour of a cleaner running 2.3-litre four-cylinder EcoBoost unit that will also be used in the all-new Mustang.

It was believed the Focus RS would get higher boost than the Mustang, pushing its power output past the 240kW mark, channelled to the front wheels only.

However, all this remains nothing more than speculation for now, as the Blue Oval’s focus for now seems to be on high-volume mass-market models.

Ford revealed a facelifted version of its current Focus hatchback at the Geneva motor show last month and will this month unveil a similar midlife makeover for the Focus sedan.

Autocar’s report suggests the company is concerned that the Focus RS would eat into sales of the existing Focus ST and upcoming Mustang (which will be sold in Europe), although this was apparently not backed up by the results of focus groups.

In case the Focus RS doesn’t get the green light, European high-po Ford fans will have to be content with the Mustang EcoBoost, which will push out 227kW and 407Nm to the rear wheels via a manual or optional automatic transmission.

Whether a US-sourced rear-drive coupe can successfully occupy the niche formerly filled by a rip-snorting hot-hatch remains to be seen, but this is allegedly one potential scenario.

Meanwhile, Odell has confirmed the new Mondeo will finally be launched in Europe late this year after three years of delays. We’ll see it here in the first quarter of 2015.

The model mix will include an opulent Vignale variant that will push the Mondeo upmarket, although the new range-topper still won’t be pitched as a rival to offerings from the German prestige brands.

“We don’t expect Vignale to allow us to take customers off BMW, but it will put us on more consideration lists,” Odell said.