The car has been listed on Race Cars For You. Initially, the car was listed without a price tag in April.
In 2020, Grove Racing bought the car from Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale, Arizona, for $200,000 USD ($280,000 AUD at the time) in a charity auction. The car is currently listed for $425,000.
The car was used in Gymkhana Nine: Raw Industrial Playground and in the 2016 FIA World Rallycross Championship.
Powered by a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, the Ford Focus was developed by Ford Performance and built by M-Sport in the UK. Just three cars of that kind were built.
Block and Andreas Bakkerud raced under the Hoonigan Racing Division in 2016 and 2017. Bakkerud brought the car its most success, winning in Norway, his home event in Sweden, and Argentina.
Surprisingly, the #43 car has an interesting connection to Australia.
Block originally planned for Gymkhana Nine to be filmed in Sydney, but was denied by authorities who feared it would encourage hooning.
Instead, the video was shot in western New York.
“I really wanted to bring Nine back to the core roots of my earlier Gymkhana videos,” said Block in 2016.
“The full city takeovers are a ton of fun, but we felt that it was time to get back to the basics, especially with the new Ford Focus RS RX.
“We really wanted to let it shine and be the star in this video since it has so much usable power and control.
“We also partnered with Microsoft’s Forza Horizon 3 video game on this one, which allowed us to incorporate some insane tricks that actually pull inspiration from the game itself.
“It all worked out amazingly and I couldn’t be more stoked on how this video turned out.”
Gymkhana Nine became one of the most iconic videos in the series, notably for scenes where Block slid on the edge of a pier and another scene where he jumped over train tracks as a locomotive approached.
“The moment where I’m hanging the rear of my car off of that shipping pier was definitely stressful,” said Block.
“But, it’s something that we really wanted to do in real life since previously people have only seen something like that in a CGI BMW commercial.
“That’s the great thing about these videos, everything I do with the car, everything we capture on camera is all real, live action.
“We may do a few takes to get all of the angles covered or get timing more dialled, but at the end of the day it’s all actual driving, nothing is faked.”
After acquiring the car, Grove flagged the potential for the car to be used on special occasions.
The car was displayed at a Penrite Oil open day in Melbourne last year as well as Summernats in Canberra.
“As far as cars go, they don’t come much cooler than this,” said Stephen Grove in 2020.
“We thought this was a really unique opportunity to buy a car of this type that also has some unique ties with Australia.
“The fact that all the proceeds were going to charity was the thing that made it that much more appealing.”
The Focus was also the source of inspiration for Cameron Waters’ 2023 Adelaide 500 Monster Energy livery after Block died in an accident.
Discussion about this post