THE FORD FOCUS is packed with technology, looks good, offers fantastic driving dynamics and melds ride control, comfort and dynamic responsiveness.
In the Philippine Motoring landscape there are some hidden gems that often leave me flabbergasted as to why less people actually own and drive them. The Ford Focus is one of them. It’s not perfect, but is very close to it, and offers unmatched levels of comfort, refinement and performance.
The Focus is packed with technology, looks good, offers fantastic driving dynamics and melds ride control, comfort and dynamic responsiveness.
Let’s look at the technology side first:
Active radiator grill shutters. In any car, designers and aerodynamicists (along with engineers and production people) are often in a constant struggle as to who gives in to what. A usual key point here is aerodynamics. Give the car a really aggressive front end, and you either a.) increase aerodynamic drag and/or create excessive wind noise; b.) reduce frontal opening to cool the various heat exchangers which can cause the car to overheat; c.) make the existing production technologies irrelevant because the technology required to make the design is too expensive and specialized or; d.) make it too complicated for its intended market.
Well, Ford was able to get everyone to agree on the front end by way of these active radiator grill shutters. It works by opening the grills with vents to allow for cooling air at low speeds and at idle, and closing up almost half the frontal opening to reduce aerodynamic drag at high speeds, which saves on fuel.
Engine designers will also say that they want to run the engine as hot as possible to get the most fuel efficiency and the best combustion process available, which saves on fuel, reduces emissions and just generally makes the world a cleaner, happier place. Additionally, the active vents help speed up warm-up time of the engine, which is when the engine spews out the most amount of exhaust gasses. Genius indeed.
Torque Vectoring. Torque vectoring is one of those “zero to hero” electronic driving aids which helps improve cornering speeds and stability. It apportions torque individually on the left and right driving wheels (slower speeds and/or less torque on the inside wheel, faster speeds and/or more torque on the outside wheel) to help the Focus rotate faster, using the ABS-EBD equipped brakes to control the wheel speed and therefore, actual wheel torque output.
THE FOCUS offers fantastic driving dynamics and melds ride control, comfort and dynamic responsiveness.
I’m a believer of this technology. I’ve tried it in a Porsche 991 sports car, which I threw with literally reckless abandon on a the race track (of course it was demonstrated to me earlier). The 991 turned-in, understeered just a wee bit then suddenly tossed its tail-out ever so slightly but which allowed me to zero in on the clipping point of the apex, which surprisingly resulted in me finding the absolutely perfect balance of sliding/drifting/cornering on a long skid pad at insane speeds. Seeing this technology trickle down to a mass-market car like the Focus has me stoked immensely!
Gasoline Direct Injection. again we’re seeing more and more premium cars, sports cars and performance cars moving into gasoline direct injection technology.
The benefits are clear: cooler running engines due to the direct gasoline injection process cooling down the combustion process, less pumping losses due to more precise fuel metering, the ability to run higher compression ratios (thanks again to gasoline direct injection cooling the combustion process) which results in far less emissions, better low-end responsiveness and a greater, more immediate power curve.
All told, the technology delivers a class-leading 168 ps and 202 Newton-Meters of torque. Some bolt-on performance parts (intake upgrade, free-flow exhaust) can help net even more ponies and a sweeter sounding Focus.
Active City Stop. The Active City Stop really helps if, like me, you are prone to getting riled up easily, confused and disoriented. In a flurry of phone calls, text messages and emails all coming in like you were being data-bombed, the Focus suddenly lurched to a stop really hard with some fancy lights flashing on the dashboard. Apparently, my car had started to creep in traffic as the road was on a very gentle downhill descent and I wasn’t pressing on the brakes hard enough.
With Active City Stop’s help my big, round, and by then very-warm hotdog-fed tush, was saved, so I’m a believer of this technology.
There are some tech stuff which, although impressive on paper, aren’t so in practice. The Active Park Assist thingy is, in my opinion, for lazy people who never bothered to learn how to drive (and all the necessary supporting skills) properly. The dual-clutch transmission is just plain horrible at any speeds, except when you’re starting from dead-stop and intend to break some land speed records. But try shifting up or down at any speed and it will get confused, with response being lethargic at best.
Additionally, the manual override function, which is basically a rocker switch, is unintuitive to use; I never even bothered to because one’s motions and actions seem unnatural while driving a car. The Ford SYNC interface/multimedia system is either way over my head or just plain complicated to use. You be the judge of that. The futuristic 4-spoke steering wheel could have at least had one spoke less and half the buttons in it to make driving less complicated and overall more enjoyable as the less clutter allows you to focus more on the drive ahead.
Despite my misgivings on some of its technology, the Ford Focus still impresses. The fit and finish of the car is amazing; the chassis feels like a bank vault and the control-blade rear suspension, together with the Torque-Vectoring System winds up cornering responsiveness to 11 such that you’ll somehow always search for the long and winding way home. The brakes are firm and offer generous feel and feedback. And the swooping hatchback body seems to blur the lines between frumpy mass-market hatchback and stylish coupe.
The one thing that really just stopped the Focus from being truly, truly epic is the transmission. My unsolicited advice to Ford is to get rid of that clunky gearbox and stick in a regular manual transmission, or even a regular automatic transmission. Or at the very least, put proper flappy paddles behind the steering wheel.
I’ll buy one if they do that.