have anyone of you interested bothered going down to a ford dealer and see if you can order one?
if they get enough deposits i'm sure they can get some put on a boat with all the diesels everyone here seems to want too.

GTIs...
Soooo effing boring these days.
Way over-hyped and overpriced in my opinion.
Slooooow.
Good for all the Freds out there that want to be seen in a 'sporty' car.

Regarding the focus above... it's the volvo 5-cylinder, right? they don't bring that one over at all, IIRC.

Correct.

Ford here and in Europe knows who its market is.

Sure, I see a few Ford Focus SVTs running around L.A., but if Ford were to raise production #s of such a car for $30,000+ there's no guarantee they'd sell well in, for example, the Midwest. Not when you can buy a 5.0 Mustang that will kick Focus SVT butt from streetlight to streetlight for at least $5K less.

This forum, like any good car magazine, is really a microcosm of the buying public at large. I hate to say it, but no matter how loud our voices raise about the Focus RS, the Ford USA marketing and account department will continue to keep its doors shut.

Depending on the buyer, the American public at large will buy a cheap Mercedes C-class, BMW 3-series, a nicely-equipped Audi A3 or some Shelby Mustang variant for $40,000, before they buy a Ford hatchback. It doesn't matter how hot the hatchback is.