, there's still enough space for a few bags for the family holiday. And if you don't need all that space, the intelligently designed boot floor folds upward across its width to form a partition, preventing smaller items from flying around. The roll-away load cover can be removed and stored beneath, too, and you'll also find a spare wheel under there as standard – a rare treat in this day and age. Our test car goes by the rather unwieldy name of the Focus 1.0 MHEV ST-Line Vignale EcoBoost Estate 155 PowerShift. Phew. That means it gets the most powerful version of the 1.0-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine that's now ubiquitous in the Focus range (in fact, the only Focus Estates that lack this engine, in one form or other, are the diesel – a 1.5-litre 113bhp unit – and the 276bhp 2.3-litre ST performance model). Here, it's allied to a dual-clutch automatic gearbox. Shortly after this ST-Line Vignale was launched, Ford decided to rename it ST-Line X although there's no material difference between the two. It sits at or near the top of the range, alongside the Titanium X and Active X, all of them laden with equipment, although some items – adaptive cruise control, for example – remain on the options list. Can't afford one of these? If not, you'll have to downgrade to one of these models' corresponding non-X versions, which have less equipment but the same styling – innocuous homogeneity f){kind=link}
Sweet handling, a composed ride and a more usable interior make the facelifted Focus more desirable than its big German rival
Ford grabbed all the headlines last week – but not in a positive way. The reason? It was ending production of the Fiesta supermini, one of Britain’s favourite cars, next year.
The larger Mondeo had already suffered the same fate, the final one being produced on March 30 this year. Rumours abound that the Focus family hatchback and estate are next in line for the chop, as Ford gears up to produce more and more battery cars.
While it’s still with us, the current fourth-generation Focus has been facelifted, with the aim of boosting its appeal to your head as well as your heart.
If you’re buying with your head, estate cars such as the Skoda Octavia and the Volkswagen Golf are the ones to have. They’re very practical, eminently well suited to the job they carry out and built to exacting standards. But they’re also the kind of cars that you could stare hard at for a good 10 minutes and still forget they exist the instant you look away. Especially when they’re painted grey.