RENEWED FOCUS
Richard Bosselman puts the latest offerings from Ford — the Focus and Endura — through their paces.
ACCEPTING the swing to sports utilities has diminished sales opportunities, doesn’t alter the importance of the new Ford Focus.
Ford’s highups agreed, when launching the latest edition, that the market for this style of car isn’t what it was, but not just because so many now prefer highriding cars.
The sector itself has changed. For instance, there’s a place this edition will no longer venture: the rental zone. Even an effort to woo fleet business has diminished, although the 2.0litre diesel wagon that accompanies the three 1.5litre petrol hatches arriving here is primarily because Ford New Zealand wants to keep some established fleet customers happy.
So who are the hatch editions — Trend, STLine and Titanium — aimed at?
The likes of you and me, of course. Private buyers, statistically speaking, account for a much smaller slice of the sales pie than the combined commercial sectors, but if the product is tasty enough, chances are it’ll be flavour of the month.
A factor counting in Focus’ favour in this regard is the vehicle’s return to its oldworld roots after spending a generation trying to be a world car. That global brief meant that the last Focus had to appeal to American tastes, whereas the one before that was emphatically more European in its dynamic attitude.
Which was more popular? Well, you need not drive the new Focus far to discover Ford got the message. Americans, for all the pandering, didn’t buy in, so Ford has gone back to the European approach.
My first experience on roads north of Auckland reinforced the brandstated intent to provide the most rewarding driving and occupant experience of any midsize family model from Europe is more than simply marketing spin.
A confident handler, exhibiting strong body control and remaining wellplanted through corners, the Focus gives a big thumbsup to Ford’s new C2 platform, said to deliver a 20% increase in torsional rigidity and its selectable drive modes, featuring for the first time.
The use of new technology doesn’t stop there. Every Focus has autonomous emergency braking (AEB), nighttime pedestrian and cyclist detection, as well as lane
departure warning and lane keep assist as standard. Other standard safety features include a rear wideview camera, which offers nearly 180 degrees of vision.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t test the adaptive front lighting system with its camerabased predictive curve light and signbased light that preadjusts headlamp patterns for improved visibility by monitoring bends in the road and road signs as it was a day test, but we did check the alsonew headup display (HUD), the evasive steering assist, a segmentfirst technology that helps drivers steer around stopped or slower vehicles to help avoid collisions, and the Active Park Assist 2. The latter gives the car total control for selfparking, operating gear selection, throttle and braking inputs to enable fully automated manoeuvres at the push of a button.
It also has dualzone climate control, keyless entry and start, and wireless smartphone charging as standard.
Some of the plastics Ford uses remain rather less impressive than what you’ll see in some rivals’ offerings, but the cabin is improved by an 8.0inch touchscreen Sync3 infotainment system, satellite navigation with live traffic, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support, Bluetooth connectivity, a sixspeaker sound system, voice control and WiFi hotspot.
The STLine is the family looker; the addition of a honeycomb grille insert, a body kit, a 10mm lower sports suspension, LED fog lights, chrome dual exhaust tailpipes and 17inch alloy wheels lend more character. The interior is also enlivened by a flatbottom steering wheel, sports seats, a black roofliner and alloy pedals.
The badge message, of course, says sporty mainly in style: the star turn for performance comes next year, with a proper ST, this time with an automated box, and, further into the future, there’s bound to be an RS.
Also scheduled, in a few months, is the Focus Active, a model that delivers an elevated SUVish stance, stands 30mm higher than the others and clearly has some offseal leanings — the inclusion of Slippery and Trail driving modes alongside the other models’ three selections of Eco, Normal and Sport.
It might seem a bit weird that Focus steps up on driving enjoyment given that, even though continuously controlled damping technology and those drive modes come in, the hatches revert to a torsion beam rear suspension. Yet ride quality is good and the rear never seems nervous or jolty, so perhaps Ford has broken new ground.
That’s certainly the case with the new drivetrain, an EcoBoost turbocharged petrol engine with a new eightspeed automatic transmission, controlled by a notsopleasing rotary gearshift dial.
The engine is very responsive to throttle inputs and provides good acceleration. In addition, there’s a pleasingly rorty exhaust note and the motor engages well with a torqueconverter transmission, which adapts to the current driving style but is less intuitive when used in manual mode.
The launch day also allowed time in the updated Endura.
The Endura’s previous 2.7litre V6 and sixspeed transmission has been dropped for a 2litre diesel and eightspeed transmission. There has also been a styling freshen, more tech and more choice, with the STLine joined by a pricier Titanium and an entry level Trend, the latter in frontwheel drive as well as 4WD.
Outputs are almost on par with the Focus diesel, which means there’s 14kW less power and 50Nm less torque than before; hit a hill and the revised Endura works harder to haul this 2.2tonne mass. However, there’s significant gain with economy and it’s a smoother, quieter drivetrain, too.
The updated car has more premium softtouch materials, a nicer and more intuitive control interface and more tech, though the assists — and the cabin presentation — are still a generation behind Focus, save that it also has the same rotary gear selector.
Added functions include postcollision braking (basically, if the airbags deploy, the brakes will automatically lock) and evasive steering assist. It also takes park assist, though an earlier setup than that of the new Focus.