To look at the sales figures, it would be forgivable to assume that nothing had changed. It remains a British habit to walk into a showroom, point at a Ford Focus and say "I'll have one of those", even though the definition of a Focus is now so comprehensively different to what it was a year ago.If you had fallen asleep during the Millennium celebrations and woken up this morning behind the wheel of the new car, you might fancy that you were sitting in the latest version of the Mondeo, such is the enormous amount of room available to front seat occupants. A glance into the luggage compartment might not convince you otherwise, since the extra rear overhang has allowed a considerable increase in storage space (anything from 385 to 1247 litres, depending on whether you arrange the seating to carry two or five people).Doubts might possibly creep in as you ventured into the rear. There is actually a reasonable amount of room here - mostly thanks to the knee space carved into the back of the front seats - but it doesn't feel like it if you're sitting behind a tall driver.If that driver is of an enthusiastic and sporty persuasion, he or she is likely to regret Ford's reworking of the Focus suspension. While the original Focus was astonishingly nimble for a mainstream family hatchback, the new version is a great deal more ponderous; it's good that this car feels like a Mondeo in terms of interior space, less so that it also handles no more sharply than the larger car.An obvious retort to comments of this kind is that very few Focus buyers are looking for finely-tuned cornering ability. My counter-riposte is that the new Focus suffers in terms of ride quality as much as of handling. It has the hallmarks of a car which has had the majority of its suspension work done in Germany, where the roads are smooth and good damping is less critical than it is on the less elegant surfaces of the UK.Although it has lost some of its finesse in the development from one generation to the next, the Focus is nevertheless exceptionally pleasant to drive both in town and on long cruises. A major factor in this is the weighting of the major controls, which are meaty without being cumbersome, and even more importantly all require similar amounts of effort to use.The basic cruising ability is enhanced if your Focus, like the car tested here, is fitted with the two-litre TDCi turbo diesel engine. We know from long experience that this is a very special unit, and it works extremely well in this application. This would be a good point at which to note that the comments in our UK launch report that the TDCi Focus seemed disappointingly slow were based on driving a very low-mileage example. The test car had covered over 11,000 miles by the time I got it, and the engine had loosened up nicely.Properly run-in, the TDCi unit performs wonders. Ford has arranged things in such a way that in sixth gear the Focus achieves nearly 40mph per 1000rpm, which is an extraordinarily high figure. Many other diesels simply could not pull a gear like that, and of those that could even come close a significant proportion will struggle to accelerate from any speed unless you drop down to fourth or fifth.The Focus, in contrast, can actually use that sixth gear, even at not much over tickover speed. In fact, it's a much nicer car to drive if you keep the revs below about 3000rpm - if you do this you'll still cover the ground as quickly as you need to, and you'll experience a pleasant shove forwards every time you change up a gear.The TDCi engine is available only in conjunction with the top three trim levels in the range, namely Zetec, Ghia and Titanium. The price spread across the three cars is less than £1000, and the customer's eventual choice comes down to a minor preference for relatively inconsequential items of equipment. The Ghia test car, for example, gains only body-coloured side mouldings, standard rather than optional heated windscreen, and automatic headlights and wipers in relation to the Zetec, and loses out to the Titanium only in terms of how fancy a sound system is available as standard. Engine 1997 cc, 4 cylinders Power 136bhp @4000 rpm Torque 251ib/ft @2000 rpm Transmission 6 speed manual Fuel/CO2 50.4mpg / 148 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 9.3sec Top speed 126 mph Price From £18156.00 approx Release date 08/01/2005
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