The first Ford Focus became a legend thanks to rally racing. With Colin McRae behind the wheel, its WRC success made it an icon of performance.
The original Ford Focus emerged as a groundbreaking model, setting new standards for small cars as Ford entered the new millennium. Praised for its exceptional driving dynamics, it pushed competitors to enhance their own offerings, including the Mk5 Golf, which benefited from the Focus’s innovations.
However, it was the Focus’s rallying pedigree that cemented its status as a performance icon. Ford partnered with M-Sport to create an all-wheel-drive, active-differential powerhouse for the World Rally Championship, enlisting stars like Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz as drivers. A recent Hagerty video features Henry Catchpole driving a former Sainz Focus WRC car, highlighting what made this rally car so remarkable.
Though the first-generation Focus WRC never secured a WRC Championship title, McRae and Sainz achieved several notable rally victories, and Marko Martin continued its success with additional wins. The Focus WRC was a technological marvel, featuring active center and front differentials, a six-speed sequential transmission, and a distinctive stubby gear lever mounted on the steering column, with Gunther Steiner from F1 fame leading its development.
The Focus WRC also influenced the development of the Focus RS road car, thanks to Richard Parry-Jones, a rally enthusiast who played a key role in Ford’s product revival during the 1990s and 2000s. Catchpole’s drive in a Focus RS serves as a reminder of the Focus’s overall significance, even if it wasn’t the top hot-hatch of its era.
The Focus WRC remains a thrilling drive—powerful, nimble, and a perfect mix of analog and digital features. Like the 1960s Mustang, the original Focus embodies Ford at its finest. Although it didn’t make as big an impact in the U.S. as it did in the UK and Europe, its legacy endures among enthusiasts, despite the rarity of finding a Focus SVT today.
