The practice of building cool cars for Europe by American automakers and not selling them stateside is becoming a thing of the past. But still, over the years US enthusiasts missed out on plenty. And it sucked, big time. One of those pieces of forbidden fruit was the Ford Focus RS. In fact, the US missed out on this generation of Focus entirely. That also sucked, but the pain of not having that turbo 2.5-liter with 301 hp and 325 lb-ft hot hatch was particularly bad.

Launched in 2009, the Focus RS went from 0-62 mph in 5.9 seconds and had a top speed of 163 mph. And it looked awesome, so awesome that a VW GTI even looked tame by comparison. Ford UK claimed that the Focus RS was the closest street legal thing to driving a full-spec rally car. That's probably true. Too bad Americans never got the chance to find out for sure.