the new focus will be both more agile and more comfortable

This is Ford’s third-generation Focus. It’s lower (by an 2.5cm), sleeker and wedgier than the outgoing car in an effort to signal its driving credentials.

There is no three-door version at launch, and there may not be one at all as no prototype has yet been made. So what chance an RS version? ‘It’s open at?the moment,’ says Ford of Europe CEO John Fleming. What is clear, though, is that an RS would no longer have the thirsty five-cylinder engine whose death warrant has just been signed. Instead it would revert to a 2-litre, turbocharged four.

Turbo fours will play a big part in the new Focus range, as they will in all future Fords. New EcoBoost units use radically variable valve timing to scavenge the cylinders at low revs, achieving efficient filling of the cylinders with air on the inlet stroke and spinning the turbo quickly up to speed.

The Focus gets the smaller EcoBoost unit, a 1.6 able to produce up to 180bhp plus 177lb ft of torque at just 1500rpm. The bigger engine is a 2.0, initially with 203bhp plus 199lb ft at, again, 1500rpm; this is the engine which could appear, suitably tuned, in a future ST or RS. There’s a new six-speed manual gearbox to suit.

So, how will the new Focus drive? Chief engineer Jens Ludmann says it will be both more agile and more comfortable than the car it replaces, whose wheelbase and overall weight it shares despite a stiffer structure and greater cabin space. The tracks are wider but the suspension architecture is similar in principle if different in detail. There’s a torque-vectoring system to improve traction and minimise understeer by braking the inside front wheel as needed, and the power steering is now electric for better fuel efficiency. It’ll still be precise, though, we’re told.

Meanwhile, rumours of an ST version of the Fiesta have firmed up with the news of the 180bhp EcoBoost 1.6. Will it happen? ‘Well, such an engine would certainly go well in a car with stripes,’ says one marketing man from Ford, who’s driven it.