The Ford Focus Rallye Sport is one of those cars that we’ve long admired from afar, mainly because Ford, in their infinite wisdom, has deemed it unfit for American consumption. Heck, the Blue Oval never even imported the degrees-of-magnitude-better European Focus in any guise for that matter. That makes it extremely unlikely that we’d ever see the rumored Clubsport model, the exclamation point set to cap off the long run of the current generation car.

That 350 horsepower ripper is propelled by Ford’s highly lauded 2.5-liter turbocharged five-cylinder engine, and features lightweight racing seats, a lowered and stiffened suspension and stickier rubber at the corners. With a 0 to 60 run projected to be under five seconds, it sounded like just the ticket for a little WRX/Evo hunting. Although we’re saddened that we’ll likely never see one on these shores (perhaps at Cars & Coffee in ten years), there is a faint light at the end of the tunnel.

The latest web gossip says that a new version of the RS has been greenlighted by Ford, based on the new Focus platform that was recently unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show. With the new Focus being a global car, that would seemingly tell us that his model might have a much better chance of coming Stateside.

And as if that weren’t entertaining enough, there’s scuttlebutt indicating the car might the launchpad for a new high-performance Ecoboost Hybrid.  Built around Ford’s 2.0-liter Ecoboost four cylinder, the additional electric motor would apparently send torque to the rear tires while the petrol mill powers the fronts. That unique all-wheel drive arrangement could get the 0-60 run below five seconds and push the RS to a top speed of 155 miles per hour.

While this hybrid RS is likely a long way off, there’s also a slightly more probable 240-horsepower Ecoboost Focus ST in the works, That car could appear within the next 18 months. Fingers crossed…