2020 Ford Focus vs 2021

What's the difference?

The Focus ST is going to be the perfect hot hatch for many – quick, practical, affordable and driveable every day, much like the Volkswagen Golf GTI. Others will want something hotter, sharper and wilder looking, but for the foreseeable future the ST is the most hardcore hatch Ford has to serve up.

Ten years ago, the idea that the higher-riding version of a hatchback would be a good city car would have been laughable. The Focus Active is pitched as a kind of SUV with its different low-grip driving modes, which you'll never touch if you stick to the city.

The Ford Focus is genuinely a brilliant car, no matter where you take it. The Active takes a terrific chassis, tweaks it for comfort but, ironically, doesn't lose much of the speed.

The Focus is up there with the best-looking small hatches on the market with its low-slung body and sleek profile, the long bonnet and the hungry looking grille. The ST version toughens the look without going over the top.

ST enhancements include the 19-inch ST wheels with 235/35 R19 tyres, the mesh grille, front and rear bumper treatment, the side skirts, roof-top spoiler, and the twin exhaust.

Inside there’s the ST steering wheel, aluminium gear knob, ST metallic pedals, the Ford Performance scuff plates, a dark headliner and ST floor mats.

Want the look without the price tag? The ST-Line Focus could be the answer because it shares many of the same body kit features, but doesn’t have the ST’s performance credentials to go with it.

ST owners might find the almost identical looks to the ST-Line a bit disappointing. Maybe Ford should have made more features ST specific? But ultimately, there are enough differences, including the wheels, the exhaust and diffuser, to signal to those in the know that this isn’t an ordinary Focus.

A nice touch which will make owners happy is the ‘debadging’ of the Focus lettering across the tailgate. Now, not every Focus can boast that.  

Fancy Recaro two-tone seats aside, the rest of the cabin styling in the Focus ST is underwhelming with all its black plastic surfaces and a steering wheel which not only has an overly busy design (with buttons galore), but looks old for a new-gen car.

An interesting cabin feature is the rotary gear shifter, which looks cool and helps create that spacious cockpit feel. What’s it like to use? I’ll cover that in the driving section below.  

The dimensions of the Focus ST are: 4378mm long, 1825mm wide and 1458mm tall.

For a fairly conservative hatchback, the Focus came under fire for what some termed its derivative styling. I quite like it, and not just because the styling work was led by an Australian. The front end is very much family Ford, as long as it's the European arm of the family, fitting in with its smaller sibling, the Fiesta. The Active scores the usual black cladding, higher ride height and smaller diameter wheels, in exchange for more compliant, higher-profile tyres. All of that takes nothing away from a design that I think looks pretty good.

The cabin is well put together, with just that oddly angled touchscreen causing me a bit of a twitch. The design is a fairly steady Ford interior with a lot of switchgear shared with the Fiesta, but it's all quite nice. The materials feel mostly pleasant  and the hardwearing fabric on the seats feels right for this kind of car.

The Focus ST is four-door hatchback with five seats and that makes it far more practical than a coupe sports car, but keep in mind it’s still small.

Legroom is great for me in the second row (I’m 191cm/6'3" tall, though) and when sitting behind my driving position my knees touched the seat back. Headroom back there is good, and I was impressed by the large apertures on those rear doors which made climbing in and out easier than most hatches.

The boot in the Focus ST isn’t the biggest in the class at 273 litres. That’s 68 litres less than the cargo area in the regular Focus because the ST has a subwoofer stereo speaker and a space saver spare wheel living under the boot floor.

Is it big enough to use as a family car? Well it was for our little family with one small child, but only just – the size of the boot really limited what we could take with us.

The lack of directional air vents in the second row isn’t good news for passengers, although there are two cupholders, decent-sized door pockets and a 12V power outlet back there.

Up front there are another two cupholders, big door pockets, a wireless charger and USB port in the hidey hole under the dash, and another USB port in the centre console bin.

If you’re only occasionally going to have people in the back the Focus ST will suit you well with a spacious cockpit that has good head-, leg-, shoulder-, and elbowroom.

A note about those Recaro seats – they have broad backs but a small seat area which I found a bit little for my backside. So, for anybody with a big back and small bottom, this is the seat you’ve been looking for.

The Focus is quite roomy compared to other cars in its class. The rear seat has good leg and headroom, with the feeling of space accentuated by large windows. Annoyingly, though, all that work put into making the rear a nice place to be is ruined by a lack of amenities like cupholders, USB ports or an armrest. 

Front-seat passengers fare better with two cupholders, a roomy space at the base of the console for a phone and a wireless-charging pad. The front seats are very comfortable, too.

The boot starts at a fairly average 375 litres - clearly sacrificed for rear-seat space - and maxes out at 1320 litres with the seats down. While you have to lift things over the loading lip and down into the boot, it's one of the more sensibly shaped load areas, with straight up and down sides. Ironically, the smaller Puma has a noticeably larger boot.

The Focus Active wears a $30,990 sticker but the several people I know who  bought one haven't paid that much, so Ford dealers are obviously keen to do deals. Even at that price, it's got a fair bit of stuff. The Active has 17-inch wheels, a six-speaker stereo, dual-zone climate control, reversing camera, keyless entry and start, front and rear parking sensors, cruise control, auto LED headlights, LED fog lights, sat nav, auto wipers, wireless hotspot, powered and heated folding door mirrors, wireless phone charging, a big safety package and a space-saver spare.

Ford's SYNC3 comes up on the 8.0-inch screen perched on the dashboard, which weirdly feels like it's facing away from you slightly. It has wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, sat nav, DAB+ and also looks after various functions in the car.

The panoramic sunroof is a stiff $2000 and includes an annoying perforated cover rather than a solid one.

The 2.3-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder engine is the heart of the Focus ST and it’s a thumping, noisy one, making plenty of power at 206kW and oodles of torque at 420Nm.

The Focus ST is a front-wheel drive car and while a six-speed manual gearbox is offered, the car tested here had the seven-speed automatic transmission.

Manuals can be tiresome to use daily in heavy traffic, but if driving is a real passion for you then you’ll know how much more engaging it is shifting gears yourself.

Driving enthusiasts might also be disappointed by the auto transmission in Focus ST, which is eager to shift up to higher gears and then quick to change its mind. Meaning I had to keep the car in 'Sport' or manual mode to stop it shuffling cogs incessantly.

So, good marks for the engine but the score is brought down by the auto transmission.

Ford does an excellent range of small turbo engines. The "normal" Focus range (such as it is, now the wagon has disappeared from the market) comes with a 1.5-litre turbocharged three-cylinder engine. Bucking the SUV-this-size trend (yes, I know it's not really an SUV), this punchy little unit delivers an impressive 134kW and 240Nm. They're both very decent numbers for such a small engine.

The big numbers continue with the transmission boasting eight gears, a number you don't often find in a hatchback. It's a traditional torque-converter auto, too, so those of you who have bad memories of Ford's old PowerShift twin clutches should worry no more.

Power goes to the front wheels only and you'll get from 0 to 100km/h in 8.7 seconds.

Ford says that over a combination of open and urban roads the Focus ST with the automatic transmission will have used 8.8L/100km. I more than doubled that serving suggestion.

Starting with a full tank (52 litres) I drove 134.4km and needed 23.46 litres of petrol to top the tank back up to full. That works out to be 17.5L/100km. The car’s trip computer reckoned I used an average of 16.8L/100km.

Either way that’s thirsty, but not surprising because the ST has a high output four cylinder and my driving was mainly urban based, with a dash to the bush for some twisty roads.

My colleague Matt Campbell tested the manual version of the Focus ST and saw better mileage.

Anyway, who’s buying a high-performance hatch thinking it will be economical? Talking of fuel and money, you’ll need to feed the Focus ST premium unleaded petrol.

Ford's official testing for the big window sticker delivered a 6.4L/100km result on the combined cycle. In my time with the Focus, I got 7.2L/100km indicated on the dashboard, which is a pretty solid result given the Focus spent a good deal of the time on suburban or urban roads.

With its 52-litre tank, you'll cover around 800km if you manage the official figure, or just over 700km on my figures.

My colleague Matt Campbell reviewed the manual version of the Focus ST back in May 2020, and said he couldn’t wait to pilot the automatic, but I think he may have tested the better option when it comes to sporty driving.

I say that, though, not having tested the manual ST, but I’d bet my gear-shifting arm it’s more fun to drive, and that’s because the automatic seven-speed was constantly leaping up to higher gears and the only way to restrain it was by choosing Sport mode.

Even then the transmission kept changing its mind about which gear it wanted. But really, that's the only bad news when it comes to driving. The rest is all good.

Yup, the Focus ST not only does everything else right, it does it superbly. There’s the steering which is accurate and has great feedback, although plant the right foot and you’ll feel it squirm with a smidge of torque steer.

There’s the acceleration: 0-100km/h in six seconds. That’s not going to rip your face off, but it will put a smile on it.

Traction is also good, especially for a front-wheel drive car with this much grunt. And the chassis is taut and offers a great connection to what’s happening underneath you.

I was especially impressed by the ride. Sure, potholes could unsettle it, but for the most part in 'Comfort' or Sport mode the ride was composed, planted and almost comfortable (some family members felt it was a bit firm).

Helping pull the ST up are big brakes – 330mm rotors at the front and 302mm at the rear. I agree with Matt, in his review of the manual version, that while adequate, this set-up doesn't deliver the stopping power expected from anchors this big on a small car.

Now the rotary gear shifter – impressive to look at, just not to use. Ergonomically, I find it’s easier to pull or push a shifter than to turn a dial.

You may get used to it over time, but I never have despite driving various cars with them for a decade. Dials are great for adjusting things in small increments like the volume of the radio or climate control temperature but not for important stuff such as selecting Reverse or Drive.

Despite the very mild off-road pretensions, if it's a comfortable city ride you're after, the Active is the Focus to have. While the ST-Line isn't uncomfortable - not by a long way - the Active's more compliant tyres and higher ride height (30mm at the front and 34mm at the rear) iron out the bigger bumps without sacrificing much of the sportier car's impressive dynamic prowess, even with the low-rolling-resistance tyres.

The cracking 1.5-litre turbo is responsive and well-matched to the eight-speed auto. The big torque number pushes you along the road and makes overtaking much less dramatic than a 1.5-litre three-cylinder has any right to. 

Ford's trademark Euro-tuned quick steering is also along for the ride, making darting in and out of gaps a quick roll of the wrist, which has the added benefit of meaning you rarely have to take your hands off the wheel for twirling. That darting is aided and abetted by the engine and gearbox, with the turbo seemingly keeping the boost flowing with little lag. It's almost like they planned it that way.

You have good vision in all directions, which almost renders the fact that the blind-spot monitoring is optional acceptable. Almost. It's very easy to get around in, easy to park and, just as importantly, easy to get in and out of. Compared to, say, a Toyota Corolla, the rear doors are very accommodating. 

The Active has six airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, forward AEB (low speed with pedestrian avoidance and highway speeds), forward collision warning, lane-departure warning, speed-sign recognition and active lane-keep assist.

Annoyingly - and I can't for the life of me work out why this is a thing - despite some advanced safety features in the base package, you have to pay $1250 extra for blind-spot monitoring, reverse cross traffic alert and reverse AEB, which are part of the Driver Assistance Pack. No, Ford is not the only company to do this.

The back seat has two ISOFIX points and three top-tether anchors.

The Focus scored five ANCAP stars in August 2019.

The Focus ST is covered by Ford’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty. There’s seven years of roadside assistance, too, provided you service it with Ford.

Service intervals are every 12 months or 15,000km and capped at $299 for the first four services.

Ford offers a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty and a roadside-assistance package that consists of a membership to your local motoring organisation. 

The first five services cost $299 each and also include a free loan car and a 12-month extension to your roadside assist membership for up to seven years.