2004 Ford Racing Focus RS8 vs. 2004 Lamborghini Gallardo - Acceleration, Braking & Handling - Road Test & Comparison

Pedal an RS8, by contrast, and one is presumed adolescent until onlookers notice the smoke is billowing from the rear tires. Parked or rolling along quietly, the Focus slips under the radar of most folks. This is clearly the choice for the confident, self-assured enthusiast. Call us insecure proletarians, but we're throwing this round to the Lambo.

Finally, we ran both cars through our standard battery of acceleration, braking, and handling tests. Dramatically different launch techniques were required at the dragstrip. An aggressive tromp on the Lambo's go-pedal instructs the E-gear brain to drop the clutch at about 5000 rpm, resulting in a crowd-pleasing rear-tire burnout before the viscous coupling redirects 30 percent of the torque forward and the car jets off.

The RS8's light rear-end, by contrast, demands a gentle release of the clutch at about 2000 revs for a completely boring but identically quick 1.8-second launch to 30 mph, en route to an also identical 4.4-second run to 60 mph.

Beyond that speed, our Focus pulled away, tripping the quarter-mile lights in 12.7 seconds at 113.7 to the Lambo's 12.9 at 109.8. This same Gallardo, however, launched identically, has run as quick as 12.3 seconds at 117 mph in previous tests. What gives? The car exhibited no signs of driveability woes, and we noticed no bananas in the tailpipe. Our local Lamborghini experts diagnosed a mysterious fault deep within the throttle-by-wire system. Sadly, as of press time, replacement parts had yet to be swum in from the old country. Round Three: Draw.

Not surprisingly, our objective handling tests corroborated our Willow Springs findings. The Focus cornered at 0.99 g and stopped in 111 feet from 60 mph, besting the Lambo by 0.07 g and four feet. The agile RS8 scooted through the slalom 2.1 mph quicker, but the mighty Lambo ran within two tenths and 0.01 g of the Ford in our figure-eight. Neither of these tests was materially affected by the Gallardo's mysterious power deficit.