By Ken Fletcher

I'M OLD enough to remember Ford's famous RS badging the first time around and I can well recall as a spotty teenager drooling over an Escort RS.

Even now, one of the latest incarnations badged with the RS decal, still holds some mystique for this boy of a certain age and I think it would be fair to say that the Ford Focus RS was THE most liveable with fast car I drove this year. That's why it is No 2 on my Santa list for this Christmas.

And, going by the looks it gets around town, a lot of other 'boys' – both young and old – have heard about the Focus RS. It did get a lot of attention while parked up for the Annan riding of the marches earlier this year – though its Nitrous Blue did stand out somewhat, but that's easier to live with than that lurid green colour which is also available.

That famous face accounts for the fact that even before the year end, more than 2000 of the most powerful Ford Focus RS models ever had been delivered in the UK this year, with more that 350 of those in Scotland.

Nowadays, this little gem comes with four-wheel-drive as standard and 345bhp under the bonnet from a 2.3-litre petrol four-cylinder EcoBoost engine that seems to be just as happy pottering about the urban roads as it was giving you the drive of your life on more challenging roads.

It's also a lot more practical than previous versions in that it is a five-door configuration simply because there are no three-door Focus models any more and to make one just for the RS would not have been economical.

But it is the careful matching of the engine power to the gearbox through to the road that make this an outstandingly fun car to drive. It has four electronically tweaked driving modes – normal, sport, track or drift – that's quite a choice and only the brave or daft will choose 'track' when on the road.

On the full-out performance mode, the RS will do 0-62mph in just 4.7 seconds and it certainly looks capable of this, with its wide wheel arches and large bore exhausts sticking out the back. It also has a nifty little 'performance shift' light to tell how to get the best out of the six-speed manual gearbox.

An added extra on the test car was Recaro race style seats which were excellent, even for my 'curves' and did not make me feel cramped in any way, unlike some other race-style seating. These are £1145 extra, though, but will be well worth considering, dear Santa.

With all that power, you need some impressive brakes and Ford turned to Bembro for those and uses its 350mm ventilated front discs that have lightweight four-piston monoblock callipers. These are the biggest that will fit inside the standard 18-inch wheels.

All that performance is available for about £31k, though the test car had a number of options which took in just beyond £34k. And don't expect to cut costs while driving it, the official figure of 36.7mpg for combined cycle driving is a bit ambitious and you'd have to drive like a Wee Free minister to get close to that.

But this is all about fun, fun, fun, so please Santa, think about making my day ...