Any differences

[OuTTlaw]

Afternoon all

Just wondered if there are any differences between early models compared to the later produced models and if so what they were?

Have seen a few with stitched line in the seat base and also different radios but other than that that's it.

Is there any advantage in buying a early example or a later one bearing in mind the ones I'm looking at price wise the mileage are all very similar?

CheeRS

Peter

[Poynter87]

All the mk1 focus rs came with same stereos. Some came with a pink grommets on the throttle cable, dash light dimmer switch, the end of the bonnet prop was yellow on some, stitched seat bases and some came with the engine start sticker around the start button some didn't. The pink grommet on the throttle cable is supposed to have stopped the throttle cable rattling that the early ones were supposed to have suffered from. The stitched bases on the seats were to stop the seat bases from sagging like the non stitched bases. I wouldn't really think it really matters whether you bought an early or later built one as long as its been looked after as my non stitched seat base seats haven't sagged and they have done around 90k miles.

[BartFRS]

You beat me to it Richard 😂

[BartFRS]

Stitched seats (which sits much better)
Never heard of different radio's tbh
Think the later ones have the upgraded throttle cable trumpet which are yellow for LHD cars and pink for RHD if I'm correct.
Seen cars without rear seat hinge covers
Sticker around starter button on later cars
Different engine map
Different colours in bonnet stay (some are full black, others black with yellow top).
Some cars have no dasboard dimmer

[Poynter87]

I forgot about the different maps and the seat hinge covers though.

[OuTTlaw]

Brilliant thanks guys, so no big differences.
I take it the map was to sort out throttle response and not for BHP?

As for different radios then it must be down to the previous owner that had had an aftermarket unit in and replaced it with a standard one!

Just nice to know what little bits to look out for.

CheeRS

[RSRick3290]

Also some early rs's don't have the divider between the speedo and rev counter , Map change was to remove a cough in the rev range

[Poynter87]

I thought the early maps had an issue with cold which is why they changed the map which then had the cough on the later map.