By: IOL Motoring Staff
Sealy, Texas - It was only a matter of time before the performance junkies at Hennessey turned their attention to Ford's hottest hatch yet, the Focus RS, now available for the first time in the United States.
At first glance the RS HPE 400 in these pictures looks pretty standard, except for a couple of discreet Hennessey Performance badges fore and aft - until you look under the bonnet.
There you'll find a high-flow air filter and a stainless-steel replacement mid-pipe section with an electronic exhaust dump valve. What's also there, although you won't see it, is an engine management upgrade using proprietary Hennessey software.
400 American horsepower
The results are astonishing, for such a simple upgrade - power is up from 257kW to a fire-breathing 295kW (400 old-fashioned American horsepower!) and torque from 440 to 576Nm. Hennessey doesn't quote any performance figures but they are likely to be impressive, given that the standard Focus RS will launch to 100 in five seconds flat and top out at 266km/h.
Hennessey has also promised a raft of upgrades still to come for the RS, including free-flow air induction plumbing, an uprated intercooler system, stainless-steel downpipes and exhaust upgrades, modified turbo system and upgraded running gear such as wheels and tyres. As soon as we hear about them, so will you.