2000 Ford Focus

Bye-bye, Escort. Ford Motor Company is recalibrating the North American small-car standard. The plan is to do it with an automobile designed, engineered, and already successfully on sale in Europe.

"The point was to build cars of substance at affordable prices," explains Al Kammerer, director of the Focus vehicle line. "That's quite a departure for this particular segment."

Although a true "world" car (offered in North America, Europe, and Asia) is an old concept with a poor track record, our drive, instrumented test numbers, and early pricing indicate its time may have finally come. Due in Ford showrooms any day now, the all-new Focus will be available in three body styles: ZX3 three-door hatchback; LX, SE, and ZTS four-door sedan; and SE four-door wagon. (In Europe, it's also offered as a four-door hatch.)

Our tester, an uplevel ZTS sedan, came with a great price and a long list of standard equipment: light-alloy wheels, air conditioning, five-speed manual, peppy 130-horsepower DOHC, four, power windows, remote locking, AM/FM radio with CD player, leather-wrapped steering wheel, and anti-lock brakes. Even after adding the optional leather seats and side-impact airbags, the total price (including destination and delivery charges) was less than $17,000.

Pulling strongly and sweetly past 5000 rpm, the 2.0-liter Zetec powerplant reminded us of the throaty engines in VW GTIs. But like those revvy VWs, this new Ford four-cylinder must be spooled up to do its best work. So we highly recommend the slick-shifting five-speed manual. Or you can wimp out and get the pretty nice, electronically controlled four-speed automatic. Although not as quick as the 2000 Dodge Neon ES, this car seems to like a vigorous workout. We gave it just that.