Ford Focus vs Subaru Impreza

What's the difference?

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 2024 Impreza delivers on all the key things which have made the nameplate so well regarded for the last 30-odd years.

The issue is, buyer expectations have moved on. Hatchbacks need to do more than ever to compete with small SUVs, and with today’s fuel prices it’s far more valuable to offer hybrid rather than all-wheel drive.

This is why, despite the sixth-generation Impreza being a tidy high-tech offering with an admirable commitment to safety, I think it will ultimately continue to shrink its market share. This Impreza really is one for the fans.

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.

Over the years the Impreza has changed in its design and intention so much.

Once known primarily for its sporty sedan variants, today’s Impreza is a far more contemporary hatchback, forgoing the once wagon-like shape for something with the traditional bubble silhouette to align with its rivals.

For better or worse, it also syncs up with the rest of Subaru’s range, with the brand’s current design language on full show, but it also barely evolves from the previous-generation version from the outside.

It trades the chunky square light fittings from the previous car for something a bit more refined this time around, with a similar look and feel to the WRX and Outback.

Inside also gets a similar fit-out to other Subarus in the range, complete with a raised centre console, shapely dash, and the same huge screen from the Crosstrek and Outback which dominates the space and helps simplify things compared to the busy interior and multiple screens of the previous car.

It’s a cosy space with chunky comfortable seats and the signature bumper car steering wheel is a stand-out bit of Subaru design.

Even the base car with its plastic trimmed wheel and basic cloth trims in the door is basic in an almost refreshing way, but unlike some rivals manages to be comfortable, too, thanks to soft trims for your elbows in the doors.

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.

Living up to the adventure-ready Subaru promise, the Impreza's interior is quite functional.

Even though many controls have moved to the big central screen, there are individual buttons for temperature adjustment and a permanent touch function for fan speed on the lower third of the screen.

It would be nice to see a full set of physical buttons for climate functions, but this seems like a decent compromise.

Elsewhere there are large bottle holders in each door with a small accompanying pocket, two more rigid bottle holders in the centre console, a small tray behind them, and a huge armrest console box.

Under the multimedia screen there is a bay with a wireless phone charger, but like the Crosstrek, it is finished in a hard plastic material, which means your phone will easy slide around and out of the charging area in the corners, which seems like an oversight.

Adjustability is great, even in the base car, with flexible seats and a wide range of movement for the wheel, letting you easily find a suitable seating position. Width in the cabin is okay, but headroom is excellent.

The back seat offers a solid amount of room for myself behind my own seating position, at 182cm tall, but the middle position is no good for an adult thanks to the presence of a large raise in the floor to allow for the all-wheel drive system underneath.

Amenities for rear passengers are only okay in the base car, with a large bottle holder in the door and a further two in a drop-down centre armrest. There are no adjustable rear air vents or USB power outlets in the L, but outlets are added in the R and S.

Boot space is on the small side, with only 291 litres (VDA) on offer. The high floor means a limited amount of space with the luggage cover in place, although I was surprised to find we could fit the full three-piece CarsGuide luggage set once it was removed, so long as you’re okay not being able to see out the rear window.

Under the floor, the Impreza sports a space-saver spare wheel - a must-have for long-distance regional travellers.

Now in sixth-generation form, the 2024 Impreza range has been trimmed down to just one hatchback bodystyle and three trim levels - the base L, mid-spec R, and top-spec S.

True to Subaru form these variants are all priced quite close together, and the base L comes with pretty much all the kit you’ll need, with the R and S grades adding mainly luxuries to the equipment list.

Now starting from $31,490, before on-road costs, the Impreza is not as affordable as the previous-generation version, and while it manages to pack a relatively high level of standard equipment, some of its key rivals are a bit cheaper in a segment where every dollar matters.

For example, you can get into a hybrid version of Toyota’s Corolla (Ascent Sport Hybrid - $32,110) for similar money to the entry level 2.0L, the Kia Cerato can be had for under $30,000 (Cerato S Auto - $27,060) while the outgoing Hyundai i30 is significantly cheaper in its most basic trim level (i30 Auto - $26,000).

What might make you think twice is the Subaru’s standard all-wheel drive, where all of its rivals are front-wheel drive, but in an environment where fuel costs are high, I can understand why people would prefer to see a hybrid version instead.

Unlike the Impreza’s Crosstrek small SUV relation, there’s no ‘e-Boxer’ hybrid variant.

Still, standard equipment is high even on the base 2.0L. Included are 17-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, a massive 11.6-inch multimedia touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and you even get a matching wireless phone charger.

Elsewhere the base car gets cloth seats with manual adjustment, a plastic steering wheel, analogue instrument cluster with a small digital display, and importantly, the majority of Subaru’s very good active safety equipment is standard.

So, what do you get for stepping up the range? At $34,990, the 2.0R adds premium cloth seat trim, additional charging ports in the rear, eight-way power adjust for the driver, heated front seats, a leather steering wheel and shifter, steering responsive LED headlights, and LED fog lights.

At the top of the range, the $37,990 2.0S adds a 10-speaker audio system, built-in sat-nav, an electric sunroof, and synthetic leather seat trim.

The cabin tech, safety, and standard all-wheel drive are the real draws, but you have to want them. The Impreza isn’t the stellar value buy it once was.

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.

The Impreza is equipped with just one engine and transmission for its sixth-generation, a 2.0-litre (FB20) four-cylinder horizontally-opposed ‘boxer’ engine mated to a continuously variable automatic transmission, driving all four wheels via the brand’s signature ‘symmetrical’ permanent all-wheel drive system.

The FB series is a development of the successful EJ series engines which lasted from 1989-2021. This more recent engine has new material science, heads, and seals which have helped the brand push service intervals out to 12 months rather than six, and should address issues which the older engines developed over time.

Power is on-par, but not a stand-out in the segment, with peak outputs of 115kW/196Nm.

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.

One issue with having a non-turbo, non-hybrid 2.0-litre engine with all-wheel drive is relatively high fuel consumption. The Impreza has an official combined cycle fuel consumption figure of 7.5L/100km which is less than impressive in today’s market of hybrids and downsized turbocharged engines.

In my week of mostly stop-start city driving, the test example drank 11.1L/100km, which is disappointing.

Mercifully, it is capable of running on 91RON unleaded. For those who care, the CO2 output is officially 170g/km which is well above the 140g/km it would need to be at to avoid the wrath of incoming vehicle emissions regulations.

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. 

Have you driven a Subaru in the last 10 years? The drive experience here is pretty much uniform with the rest of the automaker’s range.

This means a lot of very appealing traits. For example, the new Impreza has a comfortable, compliant ride, really nicely weighted steering, and solid handling even on slippery surfaces courtesy of the all-wheel drive system.

The FB series engine also has a good bit of pull fairly early in the RPM range which makes it deceptively spritely, although power really hollows out the more you push it.

This makes it nice to drive around town, but less impressive when it comes to overtaking on the freeway.

This is reinforced by the continuously variable automatic which lends the engine a thrashy, rubbery character when pushed, but is nice and predictable at lower speeds.

The rev-happy engine is also quite noisy when a lot is asked of it, and like a lot of Japanese cars, but Subarus in particular, tyre roar picks up in the cabin above 80km/h.

It’s a comfortable and family-friendly drive, and I particularly like the way the plethora of active safety systems sit by the wayside and don’t interfere with the overall experience.

It is just a bit of a shame it doesn’t move the drive experience forward by a huge amount. The current Impreza doesn’t feel meaningfully different from the fifth-generation version which debuted in 2016.

The majority of active safety equipment is standard across all three Impreza variants including auto emergency braking up to freeway speeds with reverse auto braking, lane support systems, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, traffic sign recognition, lead vehicle start alert, driver attention alert, and adaptive cruise control.

Stepping up to the 2.0R or 2.0S nets you the front parking camera for a 360-degree parking suite, and high-beam assist for the LED headlights.

Expect the usual traction, brake, and stability controls, alongside the more modern torque vectoring system and an impressive suite of nine airbags. The new Impreza is yet to be rated by ANCAP.

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.

Subaru offers its fairly standard five-year and unlimited kilometre warranty on the Impreza, with 12 months of roadside assist included.

There is also a five-year fixed-price service program covering the first 75,000km, although it’s nowhere near as affordable as the Corolla or i30, coming in at an average annual cost of $464.64.

The Impreza needs to be serviced once every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first.