Ford Focus Coup-Cabriolet

Britain is in love with convertibles and buy more than any other European country and especially like the ones with folding steel roofs, which give the security of a saloon yet provide windin-the-hair motoring at the push of a button. So Ford’s Coup-Cabriolet version of its Focus was eagerly awaited.
Styling is by Pininfarina in Italy, where the car is made, and there is a palpable air of quality in the cabin, which uses good-quality plastics.
There is a feeling of solidity about the way everything works, from the thunk of the doors to the operation of the folding roof. As usual with this type of roof, very little space is left in the boot when it is down, and there’s precious little legroom in the back.
Such is the price of style.
This is a very smooth and easy car to drive, the twolitre 16v engine in the test car produced 145PS and was quiet and refined and only slightly more audible with the roof down.
On the move there is only one slight drawback with this model. The extra bracing under the car to make up for losing the rigidity of a permanent steel roof adds a lot of weight and you can feel it.
It’s not lethargic but it loses some of the deft fluidity which is one of the Focus’s strong suits.
It also affects fuel consumption, of course, and the car returned only around 33mpg while in my hands, in mostly urban driving.
Ford seemed to have ticked every option box available with this test car, which pushed the price up to 20,695, but the Focus CC in two-litre petrol guise costs a more reasonable 18,795.