Published:
27 March 2012When it comes to roominess, the differences between the best and worst cars in this class are best measured in units no bigger than a millimetre. So although the Ford Focus is not the most spacious car in this segment, its inadequacies are not worth a great deal of quibbling about.
If you really need to maximise rear accommodation, look elsewhere, but the Focus's cabin is competitive, as is its boot capacity of 316 litres (with a space-saver spare) to 1148 litres (with seats down and a tyre repair kit).
Fit and finish in the front of the cabin is mixed, with neat chromed touches and switches whose slickness of operation should fear nothing from Volkswagen, which contrasts with a lower-rent finish on the lower console and around the handbrake.
It straddles the flambuoyant cabin design of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta and determined functionality of the Volkswagen Golf, in a fashion not dissimilar to the Vauxhall Astra, only with rather more success and a higher perceived quality. For the life of us, though, we still cannot fathom why any manufacturer – and so many do it – mould the dashboard top with a soft-feel rubber, which you never touch, yet top the door cards with a brittle plastic that you touch every few minutes.
Ergonomically, the Focus follows much the same path: more functional than Alfa Romeo, less so than Volkswagen. Its dashboard and centre console are, pleasingly, focused towards the driver, and the quality of the digital graphics on the two displays is first rate. But the stereo and navigation controls, via a large numberpad and arrow keys, aren’t as intuitive as a good touchscreen or control-wheeled interface.
