Following the merger of Ford's North American Special Vehicle Team (SVT), the European TeamRS, and the Australian FPV divisions into the development of Ford's global performance vehicles, Ford's director of Advanced Product Creation and Performance Vehicles, Hermann Salenbauch, said that the decision to sell the Ford Focus RS/SVT in North America depended on feedback from the media and customers.[However, the model would not be released until two years after the launch of the third-generation Focus models.] On August 4, 2011, Ford’s global head of small cars, Gunnar Herrmann, revealed to Drive magazine that the third iteration of the hot hatch was in the works. The new RS was expected to arrive toward the end of 2015 in Europe and the rest of the world; in North America, it will arrive after 2015. On January 21, 2015, Ford released a teaser video previewing the 2015 Ford Focus RS, and on February 3, hosted a web-streamed reveal event from Cologne, Germany.

At the 2015 Geneva Motor Show, the production-ready third-generation Ford Focus RS was unveiled, featuring the turbocharged 2.3 L; 138.0 cu in (2,261 cc) EcoBoost engine found in the Mustang, with over 320 hp (240 kW). In the Focus RS, the engine itself produces…