This 2028 Ford Focus RS Hot Hatch Concept Is Spec’d To Hunt Down The GR Corolla Morizo
The last Ford Focus rolled out of Germany’s Saarlouis plant on November 14, 2025, ending a 27-year run and 12 million sales. The RS badge has been missing even longer, so our exclusive render imagines how Ford could bring it back as a 2028 model. This HotCars concept is a two-seat hot hatch with a WRC-derived hybrid making 500 hp, a manual gearbox, and mechanical limited-slip differentials at both ends.
This 2028 Focus RS concept is built to take on the Toyota GR Corolla Morizo Edition as a car you can drive every day and take to the track on weekends.
A Two-Seat 2028 Focus RS Concept Is Built Around The Morizo Playbook
Toyota made the GR Corolla Morizo Edition lighter by deleting the rear seats, adding a forged carbon fiber roof, and fitting forged wheels. The two-seat layout let engineers go even further, removing the rear door speakers, rear window regulators, and even the rear wiper blade and motor. The result is an estimated curb weight of 3,150 lbs, which is lighter than the 3,292-lb Circuit Edition.
Our Focus RS concept strips out the same parts, from the rear seats to the rear door speakers, window regulators, and rear wiper. The empty space behind the front seats becomes room for helmets, tools, or a spare set of track tires. Cutting that mass also takes load off the tires and brakes, which matters most when the car spends a full day lapping a circuit.
A gloss-black hexagonal grille with an RS badge dominates the front end, flanked by slim LED daytime running lights. A sharp splitter sits low under the bumper, while twin extractor vents on the hood help pull heat away from the engine bay. A vertical vent behind each front wheel arch lets hot air escape the wheel wells and eases pressure under the fenders at speed.
A tall wing on uprights rises above the rear glass and carries an integrated brake light. Below the bumper, a finned diffuser frames twin center-exit exhausts, and a red RS badge sits on the tailgate. Black multi-spoke wheels wrap around blue brake calipers, matching the deep blue paint that nods to RS models of the past.
500 hp From Ford’s WRC Hybrid, Through A Manual Gearbox
Power comes from the Puma Rally1 that M-Sport Ford ran in the World Rally Championship. Its turbocharged 1.6-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder and uses direct injection, paired with a 100 kW electric motor and a 3.9 kWh plug-in hybrid battery. The engine alone makes 380 hp and 310 lb-ft, while the electric motor lifts combined output to 500 hp and 369 lb-ft.
In the rally car, the motor delivered repeated boosts of up to three seconds at a time, using energy recovered under braking and coasting. The battery could also be recharged from an external source in about 25 minutes. A plug-in setup like this would let owners charge the battery at home overnight, the same way they would with any plug-in hybrid.
Our concept keeps the Rally1’s front and rear mechanical limited-slip differentials, along with its 50/50 torque split. The rally car’s five-speed sequential gearbox gets swapped for a 6-speed manual, which is far more practical for a production car. This also puts the Focus on equal footing with the Morizo, which uses an exclusive close-ratio six-speed manual with rev-matching.
The Morizo’s turbocharged G16E-GTS three-cylinder also displaces 1.6-liters and makes 300 hp and 295 lb-ft. That leaves our Focus RS concept 200 hp and 74 lb-ft ahead on paper. Even without the electric boost, the Ford engine would still hold an 80 hp advantage.
The FIA paused plug-in hybrid technology in Rally1 cars for the 2025 season, retiring the hybrid units the Puma once used. Putting one in a road car would give Ford’s rally hybrid a second life away from the stages. It would also give this Focus RS 150 more ponies than the last Focus RS, which topped out at 350 hp.
Drift Mode And Drift Stick In A Daily Track Weapon
The last Focus RS paired a turbocharged 2.3-liter four-cylinder with a six-speed manual and GKN all-wheel drive with torque vectoring. It made 350 hp and 350 lb-ft, and could send up to 70% of its torque to the rear wheels. That rear bias gave the car a playful, tail-happy character.
Drivers could choose from four modes: Normal, Sport, Track, and Drift. In Drift, the AWD system sent extra torque to the rear axle for controlled slides through corners. The effect came purely from AWD calibration through the GKN Twinster system.
Drift Mode returns as standard on our concept, alongside a manual pull-up handbrake like the old Focus RS had. Together, they give drivers two ways to rotate the car on a track or a closed course.
Ford Performance later sold the Drift Stick, a $999 electronic handbrake for the Focus RS that opened the rear-drive unit’s clutches and had the ABS apply pressure to only the rear brakes. Our concept makes both Drift Mode and the Drift Stick factory standard. Together, they give drivers two ways to rotate the car on a track or a closed course.
The Rally1 hybrid system could already cover town driving on electric power alone. In a road car, that means quiet, short trips around town during the week before the full 500 hp comes out on weekends. Toyota pitches the Morizo the same way, as a hot hatch built to go straight from the street to the track.
The 2017 Focus RS started at $36,775, while the Morizo was originally priced from $50,995. A hybrid RS with this much power would cost more than the old car, but it would also bring 200 hp more than the Toyota. Ford no longer builds the Focus, and our concept is the RS many fans keep asking for.
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