Ford Focus

Ford Focus - is a small family oriented car produced by legendary Ford Motor Company. In the early of its development the model was conducted under the code name CW170, and was known in narrow circles of the contractors of the company as Ford Fusion. The lineup received the original name of "Focus" much later.

As date of birth of Ford Focus can be considered the Geneva premiere of the Ghia concept car which took place in 1992. The platform codenamed CW170 kept secret for a long time, none of the dozen foreign automobile journalists predicted its fate of base for Fiesta. However, their assumptions were wrong: Ford laid up the platform for a brand new model - Focus. The first spy shots of the car were published in 1995. Back then it was more difficult to judge the specific details of the upcoming trends, but in each of its lines felt an irresistible trend of the revolution. The new design philosophy of modeling was first officially 'registered' on the tiny Ka - in 1996, then on the Cougar - in 1998, and finally a miracle happened! Ford Focus showed itself to masses.

The decision to call this car Focus was made at the beginning of 1998, when in the Ford company replacement of small family cars' brand Escort with a new modelling lineup was planned. But, unexpectedly appeared one issue. The fact of the matter is that in July 1998, the Cologne court, holding hearings on the request for arbitration from the publishing house "Burda", banned the use of the name "Ford Focus" for the German car market, as this name had already been used by the magazine Focus, which was owned by this publishing house.

In general, with regard to engines, on Ford Focus rather wide range of power plants was offered. From the senior Mondeo the company borrowed productive 1.8 and 2.0-liter Zetec-E engines, and from Fiesta - economical 1.4-liter and 1.6 Zetec-SE. Originally in a line of engines there was only one diesel — Endura TDDI – a prototype of the concept Deutz which Ford applied it on cars of 80's. Later in 2002, it was replaced by a more efficient Duratorq TDCI.

Below presented a complete set of power units of the first generation of the model for the European automotive market:

Title Volume Type Power (hp) Torque (Nm) Average consumption Max speed

Zetec-SE 1.4 petrol 74 123 5.6 l 172 km / h

Zetec-SE 1.6 petrol 99 145 6.3 l 187 km / h

Zetec-E 1.8 petrol 114 160 6.9 l 200 km / h

TDDi 1.8 diesel 74 175 4.3 l 185 km / h

TDDi 1.8 diesel 89 200 4.6 l 185 km / h

TDDi 1.8 diesel 114 250 4.57 l 198 km / h

Zetec-E 2.0 petrol 129 178 7.4 l 203 km / h

Duratec-ST 2.0 petrol 171 196 7.6 l 216 km / h

Duratec-RS 2.0 petrol 212 310 8.4 l 232 km / h

As an options the company presented to customers four type of transmissions: 5-speed manual MTX-75 (aggregated with engines 2.0, RS, 1.8 TDCi and 1.8 TDDi), 5-speed manual IB5 (with petrol engines volume of 1.4, 1.6, 1.8), 6- speed manual Getrag 285 and 4-speed automatic 4F27E (1.6 and 2.0-liter units).

The first generation of Ford offered as many as in four body types:

3 door hatchback

5 door hatchback

4 door sedan

5 door wagon

Apart from all this abundance, Ford store for its customers one more thing: sports interpretation for the cars. In the case of the first generation of the model two charged versions were available for a choice: ST170 and RS.

11 Photos of Ford Focus

Ford Focus

At any one time, in any city of the United Kingdom you care to choose, at least one hundred thousand drivers will be slightly irritated by the intermittent beep of the Ford Focus' 'the door is open' / 'you haven't done up your seat belt' / 'it's a bit cold outside' tone. They may also be bored to tears with the plain interior, the uninspiring plastics and the general feeling of ennui that envelops any Focus owner. So why on Earth do people keep buying them? Ford's tradition for outselling the competition has slipped slightly on an international scale. The Ford dynasty now sits 4th in the table of highest selling car manufacturers behind Toyota, General Motors and Volkswagen despite holding second place for something close to a million years.

This has probably got more to do with globalisation, out-sourcing and recession as opposed to Ford making a colossal engineering boob. Nevertheless, it's an interesting statistic considering that the Ford Focus is absolutely everywhere! If you stand on any high street during an average Saturday afternoon, you will be passed by a variation on the Focus theme roughly twice every second. I use the term 'variation on the Focus theme' as Ford have pulled the oldest car engineering trick out of the bag; by adding a couple of letters to the Focus badge, you can release a new edition and extend the car's lifespan limitlessly. Nobody actually knows (or cares) what "Zetec", "ST", or "C-MAX" actually means, but they continue to buy the Focus in droves.

Their only minor concern is that is costs an extra £12 to get an ashtray and a cigarette lighter fitted. The reason why the Ford Focus outnumbers people by at least nine to one in this country is a relatively simple twofold paradigm; the Focus provides quality and value for money. In many ways it is the automotive equivalent of Tesco; popping up here and there in a stealthy manner, hoping no one will notice that it is slowly taking over the world. In these economically dire times, the public are demanding the best possible vehicle for the lowest possible price. The days of affluence, reckless spending and an insistence on remaining de rigeur at all times are long gone. Here to stay are the days of huddling round a solitary burning coal for warmth, eating cold beans to save on energy bills and wearing your grandmother's hand-me-downs because you can no longer afford Levi's.