The RS may have almost supercar levels of performance, but it doesn’t have the running costs to match. It emits 225g/km of CO2, therefore sneaking below the top rate of road tax, which makes a significant difference to annual running costs. The official fuel consumption figure is acceptable at 31mpg, though this drops rapidly if the car is driven hard.

The RS will be limited to no more than 4000 and these cars are likely to mostly stay in the hands of enthusiasts. That’s good news for future values, which are likely to remain strong over coming years – values of the original have continued to perform strongly since its launch in 2002. Insurance won’t be cheap, but the RS is at least a group 19, rather than a group 20 car.

When considered in the context of its performance, the RS performs well. It may emit 225g/km of CO2, which is not green by any stretch of the imagination, but there are few cars with 300bhp or more that reach this figure. Supercars with similar levels of performance can be anything up to 500g/km of CO2.

Some buyers may be surprised to know that, despite being a high performance car and fitted with a significant amount of specialist parts, the RS is manufactured alongside standard models. That means that it’s built to a very high quality and goes through the same strict quality control that makes the Focus one of the most reliable cars on the road.