The Story
It's 2013. Ken Block, rest his beautiful soul, unveils his beautiful brand new Ford Performance Blue Focus ST at SEMA with Fifteen52. It was called the TrackSTer. It had wider fender flares, white Fifteen52 wheels, upgraded turbo and a whole bunch of other goodies. Ken quickly was becoming one of my idols growing up. I love biking and skateboarding. I loved DC shoes, Monster, the whole culture. Fast forward 2 years and I purchased a brand new 2015 Focus ST when they released the "face lift" version which in my opinion looks 10x better than the '13-'14. I modified that ST to full bolt ons and before I could even get going on the anesthetics I saw a commercial for the upcoming Focus RS. I immediately had to have it. I stopped putting money into the ST and started saving for the day they would be releasing the RS. It originally came in 4 colors and later for the final year of production they were introduce a small limited amount in Race Red. My eye was already set on that Nitrous Blue in 2016-2017. I traded in the ST towards a fully specd out RS2 package. At first I would go on to try and build it for performance but quickly realized that with its poor open deck block design it wasn't going to happen. Two blown motors later, I was fed up with being the guinea pig. It was time to let these tuners learn how to properly tune them and performance companies to come up with ideas on how to make them stronger.
From then on I decided to keep the boost level factory and just make it sound louder and nicer on the stock tune. I added some wheels and true coilovers and had a blast tracking and drifting the car in track and drift modes. Ken Block had also acquired a Nitrous Blue RS and he lowered it on some white Fifteen52 wheels. It looked gorgeous. He would go on to help design the "drift stick" with Ford Performance. You can watch a YouTube video of him testing it out. It worked flawlessly. It was an absolute riot.
Shortly after I started to modify the look if the car heavily. I was able to get sponsorships from the likes of a couple carbon fiber companies, one being Anderson Composites, Seibons sister company and California Pony Cars. It didn't take long for the car to spread like wild fire via social media. I remember just installing my Airlift Performance Air Ride when seeing the announcement between Ken Block and Rotiform. The wheels he helped designed were absolutely gorgeous. If a Fifteen52 and a Volk TE37 wheel had a baby. I had to have them. I contacted Rotiform and decided to shoot my shot. I had a huge following at the time, the most most visually modified RS at the time so I asked if there was any chance to get my hands on those wheels early? They weren't set to be released for another 6 months. This was in January 2020 I think, maybe 2021? To my surprise, I received an email saying yes, we would love for you to be the first in the U.S. to have our display set of white ones. I couldn't believe it. I signed that sponsorship contract so fast. It's something I'll never forget, just like I'll never sell these wheels now. I may switch them out, but with Ken gone now, they mean so much to me.
Currently I am still in the never ending process of building the car, changing things up each year to keep it fresh. My ultimate goal is to attend SEMA '24 with it. It was invited to be at SEMA in 2022 but to have an enclosed trailer shipping service bring the car from the east coast and back was way out of reach financially unfortunately. I have been saving ever since then so hopefully SEMA '24 will be my year!
Current Setup
- Wheels: Rotiform KB1
- Tires: Toyo Proxes Sport
- Suspension: Airlift Performance 3P
Planned Upgrades
- Exterior: Carbon fiber everything.
- Interior: Carbon everything. Half cage. Rear Seat Delete.
Build Thread Parts
Gallery
