Almost all of Ford’s performance efforts have been directed towards the Mustang in recent years. Finally, the Blue Oval has gotten around to offering us speed-freaks another option outside of the Mustang, and that is the 2013 Ford Focus ST. With a 252 horsepower EcoBoost engine and a whole slew of performance modifications, the Focus ST is a hot hatch right from the factory.

The same car in the hands of a capable tuning outfit such as Hennessey Performance Engineering, goes from hot hatch to street sleeper quickly. At the recent Texas Mile event, Hennessey was on hand with their new HPE 300 Focus ST, lighting up the track and its tires, showcasing how hot this hatch can get under their supervision.

As Hennessey found, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to boost the output of the new Focus ST. A simple cold air intake and ECU reflash helped boost horsepower by 40 ponies and torque by almost 50 ft-lbs, for a total output of 292 hp and 310 ft-lbs of torque, from a Focus! That’s considerable power, nearly as much as the Ford Mustang V6, in a lighter package.

That extra power enables this Hennessey-tuned hatchback to melt its tires with ease, as this video demonstrates. Not exactly the kind of thing we’re used to seeing from a Ford Focus, though we may have to get used to this kind of hatchback shenanigans. Hennessey will retail this kit for just $995, making it a rather affordable way to take your Focus ST to the next level of performance. A lack of graphics or appearance mods scream sleeper to us as well. This could be the start of the Focus actually becoming a performance contender. As more tuners unlock the secrets of modifying Ford’s direct injected engines power levels will likely continue to climb, the future for gear heads and horsepower fans would appear to be bright indeed, no matter how many cylinders it comes in.