Ford Focus RS Mk1 and Mk2 driven - former glories

Sure, it had fattened arches and a limited-slip diff, but it rolled down the same production line as the regular Ford Focus, which makes a huge difference to the production cost.

That meant Ford could afford to be a little liberal with some of the hardware, so it gave the RS RevoKnuckle suspension on the front struts, to cut the torque steer that would come with 301bhp and 325lb ft.

RevoKnuckle is a different name for a similar system that Renault and Vauxhall use and it’s worth going over it again. In a normal strut, the whole shebang pivots around the spring strut itself. Which is fine but, when you consider how much torque steer the 212bhp, 229lb ft Mk1 Focus gave you, you can imagine what the Mk2 would be like.

Without a limited-slip diff, some full-throttle energy just scrabbles away into the ground. With an LSD, though, both tyres are hunting for grip and finding it, tugging the steering this way and that while they’re doing it.

That’s where a RevoKnuckle/dual-axis strut comes in. It’s an extra knuckle, closer to the wheel’s centre line than the strut, about which the wheel pivots instead of at the strut. That reduces the radius about which the wheel rotates and, in turn, reduces the amount of force the wheel can exert on the steering.

It sounds more complicated than it is; the shortened distance is like pushing near the hinge of a door rather than at the handle. The same force moves the door less.It still moves it a bit, so the Mk2 torque steered, but that wasn’t the worst of it. We ran one for 12 months and about 15,000 miles, during which it got through three sets of front tyres. We gave it the beans quite a lot, I suppose. But still, that was the disadvantage of the amount of power and torque it had to deliver. But what a powerplant it had to deliver it.

The first two RSs reflect the state of the automotive business at the time. The early 2000s were freer, so a halo model could afford to have a holed business case.

The second RS couldn’t, but it did take advantage of the fact that until 2009 Ford had owned Volvo, whose 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine the ST and RS had developed. And it was a humdinger.

Today’s One Ford RS will reflect today’s car market, too. It’ll be sold everywhere and get by with a 2.3-litre four-cylinder engine. But because global ambitions mean Ford has a platform that can accept four-wheel drive, its engineers figure it might as well use it. So no five-pot, no trick front suspension, but four-wheel drive. Swings and, indeed, roundabouts.

The imminent arrival of the new car was also a good enough reason to wheel out the old stagers and see how they stack up today.

When it comes to the Mk1, I can understand those who thought it was too much – that it tugged too much, was too unruly – but I’m willing to forgive it everything today, because now it feels rare and unusual. And where it engaged then, it still does now. The ride is firm, the responses brutal. There’s a touch of turbo lag, it has a deliberate five-speed ’box and it bruises its way down the road. It was like nothing else available at the time, which helps to cement its place as a classic car now.