No side airbags for Focus RS

While there is high profile debate about its world-first drift mode, Ford’s new performance flagship, the all-wheel drive Focus RS, has a more basic safety issue; it misses out on front-side airbags.

And that means the car is unlikely to ever gain a five-star ANCAP safety rating like the standard Focus small car it is based on because that would require a crash test, an expense neither Ford or the independent testing authority is willing to bear for a limited edition model.

Ford has also told ANCAP it is unlikely to provide it with technical data the RS will comply with side impact standards without side airbags, which would be another way it could gain five stars.

While the lack of side ’bags is due to the car’s standard hard-shell Recaro front sports seats, leaving it with front and curtain ’bags only, the Australian spec of the turbocharged all-wheel drive wonder also misses out on auto city stop.

These safety features are available elsewhere including fellow right-hand drive market, the United Kingdom, where less sporty front seats with side airbags are standard and auto city stop – which avoids or reduces rear-ending other cars in city traffic – is optional.

But none of these omissions are expected to impact the popularity of the RS, which is now on-sale in Australia for a bargain $50,990 (plus on-roads) and is already sold out until 2017.

motoring.com.au drove it for the first time on Australian soil yesterday and you can find out what we thought here.

Ford Australia spokesman Damion Smy told motoring.com.au the company had full confidence in the safety of the RS despite the safety equipment omissions.

“The Focus RS offers a high level of safety, and built on a platform that has achieve high safety ratings. We deliver the features and benefits that we believe the consumer is looking for,” he said.

“The Focus RS customer will buy this car due to its engineering innovations, superb performance, track capability and safety."

Smy said the decision to go with Recaros standard was based on the profile of the RS customer.

“We know the Australian Focus RS customer demands the most performance-oriented equipment,” he said.  “We feel that most customers would've ticked the box for these, so we've made them standard.”

The RS’ obvious rivals, including the iconic WRX STI sedan, come with side airbags. In fact, Subaru addressed this very issue as far back as 2008 when it fitted front-side airbags to the third generation STi.

ANCAP has a disclaimer on its website specifying its five star rating for the Focus excludes the RS.

“Racing-type seats certainly don’t exclude a vehicle from the maximum safety rating,” ANCAP Chief Executive Officer James Goodwin said.

“The RS is unrated by ANCAP as we don’t have crash performance data for the whiplash or pole tests for that particular variant of the Focus and different seats can perform differently in testing – either better or worse,” he said.

“We work with Ford to provide safety ratings for their vehicles but as this is a niche performance vehicle, that will be sold in small numbers, it would be difficult to justify performing a suite of crash tests on this particular model,” he said.

“ANCAP is a not-for-profit organisation so our priority is using our limited resources to provide ratings for the most popular selling vehicles on the market,” Mr Goodwin said.

Meanwhile, various people linked to road safety have reacted negatively to the drift mode, which is designed to allow the RS to corner sideways in controlled circumstances such as race tracks. However, it can also be activated on public roads.

Ford decided to leave the function enabled in Australia despite being the only market in the world to disable the line-lock ‘burn-out’ function in the new Mustang, an apparent contradiction defended by Ford Australia president Graeme Whickman back in January.

News Limited journalist Joshua Dowling has quoted Howard Scruby, the head of the Pedestrian Council of Australia, Jack Haley from the NRMA and former AMA president Professor Brian Owler, all questioning drift mode.

The RS is the latest model to be developed by Ford Performance, the blue oval’s two-year old global hot shop, that replaced local efforts such as Ford Performance Vehicles here in Australia, SVT in the USA and Team RS in Europe.

The basis of the RS is a suitably stiffened Focus five-door body shell, allied with a modified version of the Mustang’s 2.3-lire turbo-petrol engine that makes 257kW and 440Nm (470Nm in overboost), a six-speed manual gearbox, an innovative electronically-controlled dual clutch all-wheel drive system that includes rear torque vectoring, Brembo brakes and adaptive Ohlins Tenneco dampers that flips between two modes.

With the aid of launch control, Ford claims a 0-100km/h time of 4.7 sec and a top speed of 266km/h. Claimed combined fuel economy is a highly unlikely 7.7L/100km.

RS exterior equipment includes 19-inch alloys shod with Michelin Super Sport tyres, Bi-Xenon HID headlights, keyless entry and a pumped body with a gaping mouth and surfboard rear wing.

Inside there is a rear-view camera, the aforementioned partial leather Recaro single-piece front seats, a flat-bottomed steering wheel, sat-nav, dual-zone climate control, push button start, cruise control and SYNC2 connectivity system.

There are four paint choices available, but you will have to pay $450 extra if you option any colour other than white. There is also a $2500 performance wheel pack that swaps to higher performance 235/35 Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres and 19-inch forged alloys that are 950g per corner lighter.