01 Mar 06
The Focus Coupe-Cabriolet, developed and designed in collaboration with Pininfarina, combines Italian style with practicality and Focus driving quality, according to Ford. It will be made in Turin by Pininfarina and it will go on sale later this summer. Ford expects to sell around 20,000 a year.
Pininfarina also developed the folding metal roof for the closely-related Volvo C70 - which shares much of its underpinnings with the Focus range - but the Focus's electrically-folding two-piece roof is less complex than the C70's three-panel set-up. There's some resemblance between the two cars, though, with a similar side profile, long-tailed rear and a similarly plain-Jane exterior finish. However, the Focus Coupe-Cabriolet seems to have lost some of the flair and interesting detailing seen on the original Vignale concept car (Paris 2004), despite Ford's claims that it is almost untouched.
The Focus Coupe-Cabriolet should be practical, however, with a good 500 litres of loadspace when the roof is up - that's 100 litres more than in the C70 which goes some way to explain the sheer size of this car's bulkier back end. And just as Volkswagen is positioning its Eos coupe-cabriolet further upmarket (and thus more expensive) than the mainstream Golf, Ford is to fully-equip the C-C and provide an extensive options list for additional personalisation - it's not going to be a cut-price budget convertible.
The show car is finished in a brownish-grey metallic shade - very Volvo - called Luna, with chrome trim and light Camel leather upholstery. Its cabin has a two-tone effect, with a darker upper section to the instrument panel. Two tiny rear seats lie behind the more sumptuous-looking front pair, though this is par for the course in this class.
One of the Focus C-C's main selling points should be its driving dynamics, however: the Focus hatch is one of the best drives in its class and the Focus ST a fine hotted-up variant. The C-C has been developed as more of a grand tourer than a pure sports car, but should be no plod. It'll be offered with the 1.6-litre (100bhp) and 2.0-litre (145bhp) petrol engines or the 136bhp 2.0 diesel at first, but if this selection sounds none too exciting, a hotter choice is bound to follow at a later date - perhaps the turbocharged 221bhp 2.5 five-cylinder unit as in the Focus ST or the Volvo C70 T5.
