2014 Shelby Focus ST

The New 2014 Shelby Ford Focus ST

The Shelby Focus ST. White with blue stripes, the traditional Shelby colors. The last time anybody saw the Focus ST, it had been painted an eye-searing yellow and parked in front of the media room of the Detroit auto show, the perfect wattage and location to raise auto journalists' eyebrows.

This car carries the Competition decal package with a grocery list of brands like Borla, Eibach and Katzkin in a line on the doors. The blue stripe is offset to the driver's side with one stripe a foot wide, the other merely an inch. Shelby's boys would put the same on the driver's side to better spot his cars during Le Mans competition, or to pinpoint which side has the steering wheel, for international drivers.

 the latest product from Shelby American. The "American" moniker is a keen reminder from Shelby that the cars are built in the greatest country on Earth. It is a $14,995 upgrade on top of the regular Focus ST, Ford's strongest contender in the hot-hatch market in 10 years -- since the Focus SVT. Ford wants to break Volkswagen -- as well as Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Ducati, and late-model Corvette Z06es, or anything else that costs $38,000. Shelby's two most polarizing attributes out of the way first: its paint and its price. This isn't the Shelby GLH-S, which mitigated its ugliness by, mercifully, only coming in black.So, this Shelby Ford Focus ST is only $38,000?