Ford Focus RS Mountune M520 2020 UK first drive

This hardened-up, 35,000-mile development car is fitted with two-way KW adjustable dampers, which aren't included in the kit but are worth having. They give the M520 the same solid but supple brand of body control found in the BMW M2 Competition, even if the front axle now needs a very firm hand on cambered or rutted roads. Meanwhile, fuel economy varies between 30mpg when you’re cruising off-boost to as little as 8mpg for cross-country blasts.

But what blasts they are. At around 2800rpm the torque curve spikes violently as the turbo wakes up and piles on 250lb ft in the space of 1000rpm. The acute torque-steer that follows is a candid reminder that the throttle pedal goes both ways, though if you keep your cool you’ll find the M520 never drags you screaming into a hedge, no matter how real the threat at first may seem.

Even on a perfectly smooth, straight and dry road, you can spin up all four wheels if you give it everything in fourth gear, and frankly the car seems as though it’d be happiest with all the electronic aids switched off, wheels constantly over-rotating and McRae himself at the helm. Do get it properly hooked up, however, and you’ll accumulate speed in a way that makes a VW Golf R feel completely pedestrian as the scenery begins to melt.

And once you have become accustomed to the explosive torque delivery, and you trust the chassis to just about cope with the onslaught, you can start to savour the experience. After all, here we have a four-wheel-drive car with a manual ’box and a heavily boosted engine that doesn’t suffer from obvious lag. It's not hard to see the appeal, and the whooshes and hisses up front combined with an exhaust that does a respectable imitation of an anti-lag system when you're off the throttle gives the M520 Audi R8 levels of theatre, if not more.

It’s a car that needs to be learned and respected, one more often thrilling to drive fast than enjoyable, and one that can slide neatly but misbehaves often. It’s flawed but, for the fast-Ford diehards who’ve been waiting for a spiritual successor to the Escort Cosworth, the M520 is probably that car.

Personally, I'd like to try Mountune’s M400r, which doesn’t go so far as the new engine internals of the M520 but is still riotously quick, costs less and allows the chassis to even up the scales. Despite the appalling turning circle it brings, I’d also fit the firmer, lowered KW suspension. The car’s weight demands it, and the rear axle is duly more planted – and playful – than with the standard hardware.