The Ford Focus is a solid value for the budget-conscious buyer — particularly if that buyer is named Hertz. Or maybe the Ford Focus is a kicky little compact ready for the fun-seeking youngster that's inside all of us. If that doesn't do it for you, how about this: The Ford Focus is a solidly built family machine for the family that has better things to do with its money than spend it on a car.
The truth is that the Ford Focus is built to be all those things. It's as close as Ford currently comes to building a Model T: the one car that can do pretty much anything for a keen price. The Ford Focus may not be glamorous, but it knows its place in the world.
Back in 1999 the Ford Focus went into production not just in North America, but at plants around the globe as a 2000 model. And every one of those plants was building essentially the same car — a conventional, small three-door hatchback or five-door wagon front-driver powered by Ford's family of four-cylinder engines. The big differences between the North American model and the "International" model were that diesels were offered overseas but not here. North America also got a four-door-with-a-trunk version the rest of the world didn't, and the rest of the world got a five-door hatchback that North America didn't. And from the moment of launch, the Ford Focus was a worldwide hit.
The original Ford Focus handled well, drove well and looked fine. And it got better when the five-door hatch was added to the American lineup, and better still when Ford's SVT division worked its magic to create the SVT Focus. But the Ford Focus was redesigned for the 2008 model year.
For some inscrutable reason, the second-generation Ford Focus in North America didn't get the same all-new chassis the International version did in 2004. Instead America got a warmed-over original Focus for 2008 pared down to either a two-door coupe or a four-door sedan. And sales didn't suffer at all. In fact, the Ford Focus remains one of North America's and the world's best-selling cars.
