New shape, same spirit as Focus goes full circle
First and latest estates meet. By Tim Pollard
As chance has it, my sister owns an earlier Ford Focus estate, so when she came to visit recently I couldn’t help but compare it with my 2019 edition. Hers is a somewhat hardused, lived-in Mk1. As an artist she regularly lugs around show stands, potting paraphernalia and bulky boxes of tableware to exhibitions and galleries. It’s a proper workhorse.
It’s obvious as soon as you park them side by side how the Focus has shifted from generation one to four. The tailgate angle has gone from nearly upright to laidback, while the side windows have transformed from set-square deep to fashionably upticked.
Mine may look sportier – but Frances’s less striking-looking car is considerably lighter and airier as a result of that deeper glass.
In fact, shorn of any Blue Oval badging, there’s not an awful lot that interlinks the wardrobes of these two popular estate cars. I can’t overstate the impact the Mk1 Ford Focus family had at launch in 1998, landing like a slice of New Edge exotica to brush away a decade of Escort mediocrity with a modernist style, driving dynamics to shame contemporary sports cars and a fresh approach that set Ford’s path for a decade of mainstream success.
The edgy design has certainly mellowed and the new Focus won’t stop people in their tracks, as the Mk1 did. Our Mk4 is a more mature affair and looks slick if innocuous in that grown-up, classy Ruby Red paint.
There’s still that lingering feeling – perhaps unfair – that it’s been built down to a mass-market price, and I suspect the alloys and interior plastics may wear quicker than a VW Golf’s over time (as those on my sister’s Focus have).
Happily, the engineering and drive of our modern Focus have evolved in a linear fashion: ours is still among the best in the class for steering response, that deft ride versus handling balance that most modern Fords have kept, and a general fizzy joie de vivre that makes me (and my sister) smile when we drive our Focuses. It’s a good feeling.