Auto Trader Blog

Web editor Adrian Higgins picked the Ford Focus as his car of the year.

Ever seen Golden Eye?

Remember the comedy car chase featuring a fantastic hairpin-crammed road, an Aston Martin DB5 and a Ferrari F355 GTS?

This road, in the south of France was one setting for the launch of the 2008 Ford Focus, and I attended the car launch.

The Route Napoleon is a staggeringly great for anyone who loves driving and can appreciate stunning scenery.

But a Ford Focus? One journalist immediately declared he couldn’t wait to tackle the route… in an Audi R8, or a Porsche 911, or any kind of super car really.

However, over the course of a breathlessly exhilarating drive the Ford Focus revealed itself to be a super car – and one that is within the reach of far more people than a two-seater with a house-sized price tag.

The car’s handling is fantastic. It remained firmly but lightly attached to the road as I exploited the sharp steering to point it through corner after corner.

So I was driving the new Ford Focus ST yes? Nope, but we’ll be reviewing that in the New Year.

We were driving the 2-litre petrol model – which will be finding its way into thousands of homes in 2008.

Ford needed to have great confidence to reveal the new model’s capabilities as it did, on a world-famous “drivers’ road”. And that confidence was well-placed.

Not that we’d mind doing it in an Auid R8 of course…

Ford Focus ST: Hot or not?