Car Gazing
Ford Focuses on Youth, Performance
By Derek Price
Automotive trends come and go, but one fad is rock steady: Young drivers want fast cars. In the old days, young guys customized their American clunkers by adding big engines and flashy paint to make street rods. Times have changed, and today's street rod is more likely to be a Honda Civic than a flathead Ford.
With this in mind, Ford is taking on the Japanese-dominated market for speedy hatchbacks with its tricked-out SVT Focus. It's a quick, nice-handling, good-looking compact car with an $18,000 price that leaves room in the budget for some sweet accessories.
Designers on Ford's special vehicles team had a great platform to start with. The regular Focus has precise steering, an inspiring suspension and a tough-as-nails chassis, and the SVT version builds on all these traits.
Consider: The original rack-and-pinion steering was retuned for better road feel, and the springs were made significantly stiffer than a Focus in stock trim. Better shock absorbers, stickier tires and a thicker anti-roll bar give it eye-popping performance in corners. Hot rodding is all about power, though, and the SVT Focus delivers it in droves. A 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine makes a neck-snapping 170 horsepower – terrific in a small, lightweight car. Higher compression and a better intake and exhaust combine to give it a 40-horsepower advantage over the normal Focus.
The best part about this engine is its abundance of low-end torque, something that makes everyday driving quite pleasant. Many Japanese engines are just the opposite, forcing the driver to rev them high and loud to get decent acceleration.
Compared to a regular Focus, the SVT is a screamer. It rockets away from stoplights and zips down twisty roads like a hungry cheetah. Its brakes are equally impressive, seemingly with enough force to outdo Superman stopping a speeding locomotive.
Sending power to the front wheels is a Getrag six-speed manual transmission. It offers short shifts with a precise feel that rivals the best gearboxes from Japan and Europe, and a smooth clutch engagement is virtually perfect.
Styling is wonderfully understated for a car that competes with plastic-cladded monsters. Its competitors want to look like obnoxious brats, it seems, and the Ford's subdued aggressiveness is a welcome change from the enormous super-spoilers and look-at-me side skirting of its Japanese rivals.
A tasteful roof spoiler, pretty five-spoke wheels, big exhaust tip and slightly revised fascia are all that set the SVT's exterior apart from its ZX3 cousin. Sweeping lines and a pinched-off back end give it a distinctly European look.
Inside, bucket seats with red or blue inserts are accented with a good-looking shifter knob, stylish white gauge faces and aluminum pedals. An "audiophile" package adds a six-disc in-dash CD player, upgraded speakers and a subwoofer for terrific sound.
Overall, the SVT Focus is nothing short of amazing. Ford's special vehicles team squeezed a terrific amount of performance from an already good package.
Watch tonight's weather report for chills in Japan. It's coming from engineers' spines, no doubt.
(Derek Price is a newspaper editor and freelance writer living in Texas.
Contact him at dprice@cargazingonline.com)
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