Well the long awaited Ford Focus is here and is going to make an impression. There is definitely a lot to take in with this global (80% common parts) Focus. I think everyone will find areas they like and some they don’t. This design was collaborated on between Europe, United States and Asia and I find myself trying to find who had influence on what part. Overall the one thing I feel is missing on the exterior is “refinement.” There is so much going on and there doesn’t need to be.
Read on for more……
This is my favorite view, rear three quarter of the sedan. This is the most fluid area of the car and has a nice strength to it. The shoulders are shown well and I can see the Euro influence in the rear.
The front end is hard to digest. The thin verticals in the grill and large triangular openings do not “sync” with anything. Please take some notes from the Fiesta front end which came out much more resolved.
The surfacing on the side of the car is crisp and strong except for the little undercut extending forward from the door handles. The front clip begins to soften and becomes weak looking making it foreign from the rest of the car.
I would have liked the rear window to not dip down so low. The higher window would have helped bring the car forward aiding in the kinetic design language. Note the somewhat integrated fuel door. Why can’t we hide these like they did in the sixties? Oh yeah, because people would be doing laps around the gas pump trying to figure out what side their fuel door is on…..aka a dog chasing its tail.
Here is where I become impressed. This interior looks top notch. The Fiesta and Focus are now killing any other Ford interior to date. Let’s hope the materials feel as good as they look. Following the Fiesta there is sculptural surfacing providing a nice amount of depth to the interior.
Sadly the new Focus is not a homerun, but I am sure it will grow on you. Just like the new Mazda 3, consumers will have some issues with the front clip. But who knows I said the same thing about the current Ford Fusion front end and once you saw it on the road it looked great. Any opinions on car design before they hit the road are just that, opinions. The road tells all whether a design is successful or not. The road will tell us in one year what the outcome will be.
The 2nd generation Focus is SO much cleaner and nicely surfaced. In the new one the front seems too flat (it looks as if it was glued onto the rest), the feeble verticals in the grille make it look like a toy and the taillights in both versions are way too big and amorphous. The hatch’s rear end looks as if it was designed by the same person who designed the 2009 Subaru Legacy Concept – too much, too big, too complicated.
The only thing that looks definitely professional are the proportions and the stance.
I really liked J Mays’ influence on Ford design, he made everything elegant and well-resolved. Ever since ‘kinetic design’ took over, the designs are bulbous, overcomplicated and look like plastic toys (well, maybe apart from the Fiesta).
I don’t really understand the small aperture (can’t really call it a grille) for the badge at the front. It seems so restrained and out of place with the rest of the exterior. While this up-spec model looks modern and ‘confident’, I wonder how those surface details (fusiness) will translate on lesser-trimmed variants with smaller wheel sizes and plastic hubcaps.
The execution of the taillights reminds me of the Renault Megane 5-door, somehow forced but ordinary. They work a bit better on the sedan though.
Interior looks good but I’d like to see lower-spec models, and of course the quality of materials and fit can’t be discerned from photos alone.
[...] and it’s already generating substantial comment in the sphere of the blogs. Ed Stubbs and Dustin Shedlarski have both written interesting critiques of a design that I, personally, find a little [...]
I like the car and of course is more interesting than the ford focus mk 2.The interior is fantastic i also love this new rear lights but i am not sure about the front.Some car magazines said that the front of the new focus would be exactly the same as ford focus iosis max concept but this doesnt.If the car had ford focus iosis max face then the car should have been amazing!