New Ford Focus

KOMPAS.com - They’re not building it, but Ford Australia is hoping they’ll still come. Buyers, that is.

The latest version of the blue oval’s small car, the Focus, has arrived - but after rolling off a ship from Germany rather than out of the doors of Melbourne’s Broadmeadows plant as once planned.

Ford’s local executives may not want to peer at sales for the rival Holden Cruze, though. Its figures are already increasing since it sewed on a Made-in-Adelaide label earlier this year. And that’s before the hatchback version hits showrooms.

The Focus is immediately available in both hatch and sedan forms, though the irony – Ford would have built 40,000 Focuses locally from 2011 – is that supply will be constrained until the car’s production source switches from Europe to Thailand in mid 2012.

That brings a free-trade agreement into play, but don’t necessarily expect pricing to drop from today’s starting price of $21,990.

Ford is trying to pitch the new Focus as a more grown-up small car to rival Volkswagen’s Golf, and that seems to include pricing – which goes up to $36,090.

Unlike similarly priced Cruze and Golf models, though, there’s no clever downsized engine employing a turbocharger. Instead, the Ambiente (there’s even a more flamboyant range of trim names to replace the rather dull CL, LX, etc of the old model) comes with a relatively humble 1.6-litre normally aspirated engine.

There’s little wrong with its refinement, but the 92kW four-cylinder asks for plenty of effort from the ball of your right foot and the manual gearbox desperately needs a sixth ratio for more relaxed freeway progress.

From $24,490, buyers can step up to a petrol engine with two litres of capacity that brings more power and torque, though it’s a similar case of gaining momentum smoothly and gradually rather than rapidly.

A 1.6-litre turbo ‘Ecoboost’ engine available in Europe sounds promising – more torque, even better fuel economy, and quicker performance – though Ford Australia has decided not to raid that particularly cupboard.