Focus Tunnel

[Conrad]

Why do ford focus' have those driveshaft tunnels if they are front wheel drives and theres no drive shaft?

[LUXO_8]

often they're designed for other markets, where its possible to have an all wheel drive variant...
or they sometimes run the exhaust along it allowing better undercar clearance...

or, they designed them that way to allow for these

http://www.ford-v8-focus.com/index.html

Also remember that the car is using in rallying so they'd want to consider the competetivness of the car as a rally car when designing it.

Another reason is that the chassis is new and Ford probably designed it to last the next 15 years or so, and they probably designed it as a easy way to base a small/mid size RWD/AWD on

[eXtremist]

I thought the tunnel was for the exhaust components, and allowing for the heat to escape.

[Piotr]

The Focus is built on the Ford C1 platform which is designed to run AWD gear. The Volvo V50 is built on the same platform and comes with AWD.

Originally Posted by Piotr

The Focus is built on the Ford C1 platform which is designed to run AWD gear. The Volvo V50 is built on the same platform and comes with AWD.

The LR platform is C1. LS, 3 etc is on the C307.



EDIT my bad:

C307 is the duratec engine code

C1 Platform is LS, C170 is the LR.

[More revs]

Also a tunnel gives stiffness to the structure so it's not wasted space.

[Uni]

Originally Posted by Piotr

The Focus is built on the Ford C1 platform which is designed to run AWD gear. The Volvo V50 is built on the same platform and comes with AWD.

bingo.


Uni/.

[Lagom]

Originally Posted by BlackLS

The LR platform is C1. LS, 3 etc is on the C307.

EDIT my bad:

C307 is the duratec engine code

C1 Platform is LS, C170 is the LR.

The LS Focus was codenamed C307 and its platform is called C1 in Ford language or P1 in Volvo language.