Road Test: 2000 Ford Focus
That design philosophy appears to work. The Focus' average speed of 62.6 mph through our slalom makes it faster around the cones than a $62,000 Jaguar XJ8L and a $300,000 Bentley Continental. The impression is of having plenty of wheel travel for gobbling the larger stuff and big-car, full-frame isolation when encountering expansion joints and smaller road imperfections. Nice combination.
The Focus look is based on Ford's "New Edge" aesthetic, with its combo of round shapes, flats, hard edges, and sharply intersecting lines. This contrasts with the fluid shapes offered by Ford in the early '80s and predominant in cars until recently. Somewhat jarring at first, it's slowly grown on us.
Aside from more body roll than we care for, this car is a fine piece of entertaining transport with a strong engine, great brakes, and excellent ride and handling behavior. All in all, it's a lot of product value for its $15,165 base price. The small-car standard has just sharpened into Focus.
...
>>next page