Hoonigan’s Steve Arpin Discusses His 600-HP Ford Focus RS RX Rally Racer
The modified Ford hatchback can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in under two seconds.
Rallycross driver Steve Arpin recently stopped by Hoonigan Racing HQ to give loyal fans a detailed breakdown of his track weapon of choice: the Ford Focus RS RX Rallycross car that he and legend Ken Block race in the new Americas Rallycross Championship (ARX) series.
For the most recent episode of Hoonigan's video series Build Biology, Arpin is interviewed by Hoonigan co-founder Brian Scotto. The pair dives into Arpin's racing history before rallycross when he drove for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s JR Motorsports team alongside the likes of Danica Patrick. Arpin jokes that when Patrick decided to race full time he got the boot and went to rallycross. He has been with his current team since 2015 when the outfit raced in the now-defunct Global Rallycross series.
Arpin shows Scotto all the goodies found in the new car and explains that prior rallycross campaigns have been in the smaller Ford Fiesta rally car variants. The Focus RS RX is a bigger car than the Fiesta and it weighs 2,866 pounds with him aboard.
Developed by Ford and M-Sport, the Focus RS RX is powered by a 2.0-liter four-cylinder turbocharged engine pushing out 600 horsepower on 50 psi of boost. Arpin says if they ran the car without a restrictor it would easily put out 1,000 horsepower.
Throughout the video Arpin goes through all the nooks and crannies of his office, showing the steering wheel and its array of buttons including the anti-lag system control and a special secret "Hoon" button, the rear mounted radiator, the engine bay, and even the flat underside.