COVER New Ford Focus driven
We deliver our verdict as Ford goes to town with bigger, better family hatchback to take fight to VW Golf and Kia Ceed
Full report on more spacious, more thrilling family star
THE village of Siebenbach in the Eifel region of Germany is behind us; there’s a narrow, hilly, winding, freshly renovated road ahead and we’re at the wheel of the all-new Ford Focus – which is once again proving that car-driving heaven can only be delivered when the chassis isn’t steering you into hell.
The Mk3 version of Ford’s hatch has been feeling its age – threatened by everything from the VW Golf to the allnew Kia Ceed. So Ford has really pulled out the stops for the fourth generation with a fresh platform. It’s called C2 and is designed to deliver even more agile handling, while improving cabin space.
Our drive in the new Focus will take us from Cologne to Saarlouis in Germany and back (around 300 miles). Ford says the car was developed in the first of those cities and then is brought to life in the second, the location of its factory.
The new model has some known quantities in its engine line-up. There’s the 1.0-litre three-cylinder Ecoboost petrol, in three states of tune: 84bhp, 99bhp and the 123bhp unit tested here, with CO2 emissions as low as 108g/km. If you want more poke from your petrol, then there’s the three-cylinder 1.5-litre Ecoboost, with 148bhp and 180bhp. A range of new Ecoblue diesels is also available: 1.5-litre units with 94bhp or 118bhp, and a 2.0 engine with 148bhp.
The standard gearbox is a six-speed manual, but you can have a new eightspeed automatic on the 123bhp 1.0 and 148bhp 1.5 petrols, along with the 118bhp 1.5 and 2.0 diesels.
Before our journey starts in earnest, we take a hard look at the Focus’s new shape, and test its practicality. The car is 4.38 metres long, almost 20mm longer than its predecessor. It looks amazing in metallic blue, but the sloping roofline means you feel you’re squeezing in as you climb aboard.
Once you’re there, though, you’re going to love the space. The legroom on offer is the best in its class, helped by a wheelbase that’s over 50mm longer than in the Mk3 Focus.
The cabin isn’t flawless, though. Why, for heaven’s sake, has Ford fitted hard plastic in the rear seats when up front everything down to knee height is nice and soft?
Opening the boot brings more questions. Its capacity is 341 litres – adrift of the Mk7.5 Golf’s 380 litres and further behind the new Ceed (395 litres).
It’s perhaps best to get back into the driver’s seat at this point. Our car is an St-line, so the steering wheel is satisfyingly thick, covered with leather and with a flat-bottom edge.
The front cabin shows how far the Focus’s interior quality has progressed, because everything here is excellent. The door bins, for example, are lined with felt to really make sure nothing rattles. The centre console has a space for a mobile phone to sit on an inductive charging pad. There are rubber mats everywhere, preventing anything from sliding around. And the tray next to the electric parking brake even has a variable cup-holder with crossbraces that allow you to adjust it precisely.
Then there’s the facia – a breath of fresh air after the ubiquitous design in the best-selling Golf. The Focus’s infotainment screen is usefully high – although it’s a pity that there are no shortcut buttons, so you have to tap the ‘Home’ icon at the top-left of the screen to switch between functions.
But truth be told, the Focus can get away with having a few quirks in its
First drive of latest big seller with new platform, more space Two new diesels line up with familiar Ecoboost petrol engines “Ford has really pulled out the stops, with a fresh platform that’s designed to deliver even more agile handling”