Another week, another car to recommend or not recommend or get in trouble for recommending when somebody buys a variant that, when it arrives, it turns out they don’t like very much. Sigh.
Yes, it’s the new Ford Focus, a car that sets new standards for the class – in the right specification. Chiefly, with the independent rear suspension but in five-door form and with a manual gearbox and a petrol engine.
Other versions are fine, too. I’ve driven a 1.0 with a manual gearbox and a torsion beam rear suspension and in some ways it is a near-top-of-the-class car to drive, too. It’s even more agile, possibly it steers even more keenly – although that might just be the lightness of the engine – so what it gives away over the control-blade-suspension car, it gives away in comfort.
Other versions to that are also fine, but just, well, less so. They’re the kind of cars that get us letters. Stick a diesel in it, or an automatic transmission, or both, or give it an estate bodystyle in Vignale trim with a full-length glass roof and you still have a good car, but one that’s marginally less sparkly and rewarding than a regular Focus.
I haven’t tried one on really big wheels but that’s a chance somebody might take, too, idly ticking boxes on their company car specification sheet – adding wheel diameter and reducing sidewall here, adding weight equivalent to a pig on the roof (although they let in less light, to be fair), and so on. And then wondering why it’s not the dynamic marvel that they might have read it is.
Goodwood Festival of Speed 2018: classic car stars of the show
This isn’t an exclusively Ford issue, of course. But it is a modern car issue. The Focus has three different base rear suspension types: torsion beam, control blade (which it calls short long arm, slightly misleadingly),and control blade but with flattened dampers on the wagon, so as not to encroach on boot space.
And these can variously be fitted with standard dampers or adaptive dampers. So what’s it like? Great, or good, or anything in between.
And this is just a Focus. Move up to a German executive car and you can throw on other variables like a greater degree of weight variance, air springs and active anti-roll bars. If it’s a bit sporty, you can get choices of differentials that do, or don’t do, fancy torque vectoring things. These are the choices that, unlike a Focus, won’t just make the difference between a great and a good car, but a great and a really, really average – perhaps even dislikable – one.
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Isn't this the point of car magazines.....
.......?
Speccing a car
Back in the 80’s I was in the market for three company Mercedes. Just for fun I said no options, bearing in mind that even a radio was an optional extra. Mercedes said that they couldn’t supply cars without options. This was a case even in the 90’s when a friend of mine wanted an SL with cloth not leather. But he was told that leather was a cost option but was compulsory. Another sale lost Jeff Box
@ Boffrey13
I used to run a Mercedes-Benz garage in those days.
They lied to you, it wasnt that you couldnt order a basic car....of course you could! It was just that we could sell our allocation of the years cars twice over, and therefore cherry picked the most profitable orders to maximise profits.....i.e. those which were highly specced.
So it wasnt actually a lost order, just not an attractive one to the dealer!
Also an SL without leather would be near impossible to sell on when you came to p/ex it, so a dealer was protecting himself from having to crucify the customer when he wanted to trade it in.
The MB Blue Book
I remember my father's best friend getting the notorious price list back in the late 1980's from diplomatic sales in Germany. He was able to spec his S class the way he wanted. He few to Germany to pick it up and scare himself on the Autobahn before dropping it off for shipping. You could indeed get everything or nothing. Manual drivers side mirror is still a strange touch.
@ mesumguy
Lots of people couldnt 'get' the manual drivers door mirror, when the passengers was electric.
First you had to understand the pragmatic Swabian Mercedes-Benz enginer viewpoint....you need an electric passengers door mirror because you cant reach across to adjust it....'you dont need one for the drivers side because it is just a few inches away....therefore one less thing to go wrong if its manual'
Such was the attention to detail and legendary reliability in those days....now their cars are full of tech, which can (and does) go wrong. Maybe a return to necessity being the mother of invention would be a good move!
It is a weird world
But sometimes options are vital for resale. BMWs/ Audis with tiny wheels, cloth seats and no sat-nav are a nightmare to shift....
Even though the tiny wheels give better ride, the cloth seats are more comfortable, and everyone uses an iphone for navigation.