Without wanting to start on a negative note, I was very quickly convinced that I had picked the wrong engine out of the range that was available.  While some engines compromise economy for performance, or vice versa, it soon became clear that the 2-litre engine (producing about 128 BHP) in the Focus was neither particularly quick nor economical.  The car averaged around 32 MPG in its time with me, and driving briskly could see that figure plummet.  The quoted 0-60 time for the 2-litre Focus was about 9 seconds, and it did feel that quick up to 60 MPH, but power soon dropped away past about that point.

In fairness the engine was smooth and quite quiet, so all was not bad with the engine.  The best feature of the car was definitely its handling, and the fact that it remained comfortable in spite of having a great ability to go around corners.  I vividly remember being followed one day by an Alfa Romeo 147 down a winding road, the Alfa driver obviously wanting me to go quicker.  So I did go quicker and took quite a sharp bend at around 55 MPH.  The Focus stuck to the road like glue - and when I looked in the rear-view mirror the Alfa was all over the road while trying to take the corner at the same speed.  Handling was definitely the forte of this Focus.

The Focus has a nice and stylish interior, which still looks good to my eyes even now.  It had plenty of kit too, including air conditioning (not always standard on cars at that time) and a six-CD player.  I did find the quality of the car rather disappointing.  Within a few weeks of owning the car it had acquired a rattle from the dashboard that was never fixed properly in the time I owned it.  It's a shame that such things, although rather minor, do tend to influence the driving experience and give you a poor impression of what is basically a good car.

Overall I was disappointed by the Focus, although as I have already mentioned, the handling and ride quality were superb.  Looking back, I should probably have gone for one of the smaller engined version and enjoyed similar performance but with considerably better economy.  On the other hand, I would say that the car looked great, had plenty of standard equipment and was very easy to drive.  So being objective, the car wasn't all bad, but I think I could have done better by choosing a different model.