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02/06/2011
Review by EWAN KENNEDY
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Ford Focus is a very important model to Ford Australia. As sales of the Falcon continue to dwindle the company will need to rely on the small-medium Focus to take up a fair bit of the slack.
At one time Ford treated Focus so seriously it planned to build it in Australia, but later reversed that decision. Arch-rival Holden sees things differently and is now making its Focus competitor, the Holden Cruze, in Adelaide. Cruze is made on the same assembly line as Commodore giving Holden the handy option of being able to go with the flow of future buyer choice.
On the other hand, Ford Australia is making its Territory, an all-Australian design, and pinning its hopes on buyers moving in the direction of large vehicles.
Ford Australia has taken the unusual move of announcing details of the all-new Focus well ahead of its launch at the beginning of August, planning to gain early momentum in Australian sales race. A major part of that campaign will be a large display of the new Focus models at the Melbourne motor show from the first of July.
We have seen and sat in the new Ford Focus at overseas motor shows, but haven’t yet had an opportunity to drive one. It’s a handsome looking car that retains some of the styling theme of the soon to be superseded model. To our eyes it has a more mature look than the somewhat radical lines of the model it replaces. We like what we see and can see it appealing to Falcon buyers looking to downsize.
New Focus will be offered as a five-door hatchback and four-door sedan. Both have received a five-star crash test rating.
Ford is pushing hard for a stronger image of the Focus and will import it in four grades: entry-level Focus Ambiente (a name to remind us this is a European design), the midrange Focus Trend and topline Focus Titanium. The latter will continue Ford Australia’s strong push on high-tech features. Finally there is the Focus Sport with more dynamic looks and performance.
Standard or optional high-tech features include some only seen in far more upmarket vehicles. Focus will be able to parallel park itself, have radar cruise control and voice activation technology, and, as they say in the ads, much more…
Petrol engines will have capacities of 1.6 or 2.0 litres, the latter being a new design featuring the efficiency of direct petrol injection. There will also be a 2.0-litre turbo-diesel.
A five-speed manual gearbox can be chosen with the petrol engines. All engines can be specified with the recently introduced six-speed dual-clutch Ford Powershift automatic transmission.
We have been invited to the media launch of the all-new Ford Focus at the beginning of August and will report on it immediately afterwards.
Ford’s early reveal of the new Focus is good news for bargain hunters as there are sure to be special deals on the last of the outgoing models. We are not sure how many of these are in stock, and Ford is certainly not going to tell us, so if you’re halfway serious it might be an idea to contact your Ford dealer quickly. |
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