Filmed on public and closed roads in Europe and US.

ESP and traction control deactivated.

Always obey speed limits.

This is the inside story of the rebirth of an icon

the Ford Focus RS.

From the design studio to the test track, and

from Arizona to the Arctic

we follow the team

as they strive to revive a famous name.

We're not gonna put out a vehicle that doesn't deserve that RS badge.

And we'll follow Ford rally and Gymkhana superstar Ken Block

as he joins the RS team.

Ford Focus RS

Rebirth of an icon

Six weeks ago in Lommel Belgium

the RS sign off drive did not go well.

Is that it? That's it.

Wow, that is horrible.

Yes.

That's not good.

It feels a little weak

Ford's product development chief Raj Nair delivered a brutal verdict.

Not signed off.

Today over 4,000 miles away in Michigan USA

Raj is on his way to join the Ford performance team

for a second sign off drive.

We had three major issues from the drive in Lommel

that we really need to make sure are resolved.

The pops and burbles from the exhaust

steering feel in normal mode

and then brake feel

particularly in moderate to heavy braking

so, we just need to make sure that those three are fixed

and that there aren't any new issues.

The team await his arrival at Grattan Raceway near Grand Rapids.

We've had a lot of late nights

we left Lommel we went right to work

and had some struggles along the way

The issues that we had were not easy to solve.

In the last four weeks or six weeks since we had that drive

I think we've been able to clear out those issues and

we're anticipating a full approval today.

I drove the car yesterday

I'm pleased, I think we're there

and we're going to put Raj in the car soon and see if he agrees.

If we're not signed off today then ...

we have to say that we're actually not ready to go to production.

Which means a delay in job one

which mean delay in the cars getting to dealers

and the financial impact of all of that.

It's a big day.

We really need to be clean today ...

or we're gonna have some pretty serious repercussions.

Raj grabs his helmet and heads out onto the circuit alone for some high speed laps.

Back in the pits Raj summons Tyrone

to deliver his verdict.

Well ....

I think it's ready.

Finally!

Let's go build some cars because ...

there's a lot of people waiting for this car.

Oh yeah. The interest is massive.

I was referring to me, but ... yeah.

[ Laughter ]

You get so quickly used to the fact

that you just have to hit the throttle

and you've got tractive force on all four wheels.

Although to get the max out of it, if you feed in ...

right ...

and just maximize all four ...

it really flies.

Yeah.

But ... you're right you can also just mash it.

It'll make up for you.

Exactly.

It's gonna make a lot of bad drivers look good.

[ Laughter ]

Congratulations

Thanks.

Great job!

The team just needed the time to resolve the three issues

we've got the steering on normal feeling where it should be.

The brakes under heavy braking ...

good modulation, good firmness in the pedal.

Have you got your pops and burbles?

I got my pops and burbles!

The engine guys, you know said you're burning too much fuel

but I got my pops and burbles.

For the small Ford Performance team

Today marks the end of a two and a half year journey

from concept ...

to sign off.

We set out on the project with very specific targets

and we delivered those

and today really is the culmination of that.

It's the most difficult job I've ever had ...

but also the most rewarding job.

I've had to put people under huge amount of pressure ...

to deliver ...

much more so than normal development,

but it's also the reward

because you do get the results very quickly.

Much like in a race team.

And of course the development team was joined by the Hoonigan,

Ken Block.

Ken was great

he kind of came in from a different perspective

and I think that was good,

it kept us pushing the boundaries in a different way.

We want to make sure the drift mode was worthy of being a drift mode.

And I think Ken was a critical part to making that happen.

A performance team and the lengths that it's going to get the performance it needs

is probably be the ultimate example of an engineering team at its best.

That's probably enough fun.

[ Laughter ]

Just watching what we as people can do when we decide we want to do something ...

that's what's really cool.