The Ford Focus Zetec that I drove came - as is the way with cars given to journalists for their appraisal - with a number of flattering extras (CFC-free air conditioning, heated washer jets for the windscreen, electrically powered door mirrors, and other such essentials) but not, alas, with the one thing I'd been hoping to try, which was one of Ford's Third-Age Suits.
Developed in collaboration with Loughborough University, the Third-Age Suit apparently looks like a cross between a bee-keeper's smock and an astronaut's outfit. While designing the Focus, Ford's engineers - who are obviously a nimble bunch - would climb into a Third-Age Suit in order, according to Ford's literature, "to simulate driving capabilities of people often 30 years or more older than themselves". The suit would slow the engineers down and restrict their movements, "giving them a feel for the needs of an older generation".
I'm not sure Ford needed to consult scientists on this garment; I once had a suit from Next that had much the same effect. Still, the fact that Ford took the trouble gives a glimpse of the lengths it went to in the design of the Focus, lengths which have paid off handsomely. Everything in the car seems to be within comfortable reach.
If you want to sing the praises of the Focus, you have to join the queue. Only Tiger Woods has won more prizes recently. The Focus was named 2000 North American Car of the Year not long ago. It had already been awarded European Car of the Year and became the first car in the history of the awards to win both titles. It has also won its share of earnest, industry medals (What Car? gave it a Security Award for, among other things, its lockable bonnet, which should see off your local hot-wire crew) and it was nominated a Millennium Product by the Design Council. (There's a special, limited edition Millennium version of the car in a punishingly bright yellow with a Millennium Product logo stamped on its alloys, if that excites you.)
There are more than 130,000 Ford Focuses on the road in Britain and in recent months it has been battling with its elder and now completely déclassé sister, the Ford Fiesta, for overall dominance of the British market. And little wonder. The Focus is perhaps the first genuinely covetable Ford since the glory days of the Anglia, and a triumphant vindication for that change of heart a few years ago, whereby Ford, formerly a byword for conservatism and crashingly dull good sense, suddenly went all courageous and groovy on us, issuing the badly named but likeably different Ford Ka and the deeply svelte (for Ford) Puma and Cougar which followed it.
Once it had seemed that the entire point of the Ford operation was to provide somewhere for young sales executives to hang their jackets. But no longer. Probably only Skoda in our time has undergone such an abrupt image reversal. That flash of white sock and whiff of wide-boy which pretty much defined Ford's output throughout the 80s was entirely missing from this new generation of incautiously designed, dead cute oddities. Gone, too, was the Ford boredom factor. (Try and say "Ford Fiesta" without yawning.)
The Focus is not remotely soporific, certainly not in the Zetec variant, which gives the entry-level car a sporty makeover: moulded front seats, alloy wheels, some leather on the steering wheel, metallic dials - the usual sub-Colin McCrae gimmicks. Here, though, those features don't come across entirely as impostors. The car feels nippy and light but sturdy, as if fit for the occasional bit of rough road.
It's also easy on the eye without being bland. The tendency of modern cars to look like tentative experiments in glass-blowing is ameliorated in the Focus by the sharp lines around the wheel arches. The same goes for the triangular side-indicators. Though definitely part of the culture of the blob, the Focus has some discernible edges, too, which is a relief.
This is less true of the interior where - again, in common with pretty much every new car in production - the dashboard and instrument panels seem to take as their essential influence the kidney-shaped dressing table (albeit a kidney-shaped dressing table turned on its side). Given this preponderance of ovoids, pear shapes and teardrops clustering around us on the insides of our cars, it is a wonder any of us can still summon the presence of mind to drive in a straight line. Still, the cabin is big enough and airy enough that you don't find yourself pressed into contact with the dashboard or blinking into the instruments at close range.
The Focus manages the trick that the VW Golf used to pull off, of achieving a cachet among young about-towners (who can keep themselves happy with the bigger-engined models and the sporty trims) without entirely alienating the five-door family market. Nor even necessarily the Third-Age Suiters. It's got the place sewn up.
The lowdown
Ford Focus Zetec
Price: from £11,495.
Maximum speed: 115mph (1.6i).
Acceleration: 0-62 in 10.9 seconds.
Fuel economy: 39.8 mpg combined.
At the wheel: Anyone really.
On the stereo: Hocus Pocus by Focus.
