2012 Ford Focus Review
An all-new 2012 Ford Focus goes on sale early in 2011. Ford Motor Company revealed the upcoming Focus at the January 2010 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The 2012 Focus is a C-sized small car rife with new technology, new powertrains and new customer features, some of which are not offered by other cars in this class. This is a huge market segment that accounts for 2 million units of production every year and includes the Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sentra, Mazda 3, and the upcoming Chevrolet Cruze. The Focus has been a big success for Ford since its initial launch in 1998, selling more than 9.2 million cars worldwide from production plants in Germany, Russia, Spain, the Philippines, China, South Africa, and Vietnam.
In the U.S., the Focus will be available in five-door hatchback and four-door sedan versions. In Europe, the Focus is also available as a three-door hatchback, including a 300-horsepower RS model.
The new Focus will be built around an entirely new Ford powertrain, starting with an all-aluminum 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that features both a Denso direct fuel injection system and TiVCT, twin independent variable camshaft timing, two features that, taken together, provide very smooth idle with high horsepower and torque numbers, as well as excellent fuel economy and emissions performance, numbers not revealed at the moment. Initial power figures are 155 horsepower and a 145 foot-pounds of torque using a very high 12:1 compression ratio, previously suitable only for racing engines. Later on, there will be a turbocharged 1.6-liter EcoBoost version of this engine offered to the performance-minded buyer, and still later, Ford may offer a common-rail direct-injection diesel version, already slated for Europe, a hybrid version, and a battery electric version.
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