Ford Focus Coupe-Cabriolet

Developing a convertible version of any modern passenger car is always going to be an exercise in compromises. You can make the body stronger and stiffer to stop it flexing, but that adds extra weight that can also undermine dynamics – and boost the fuel bill.

The trick is to find a good compromise point, and the Coupe-Cabriolet version of Ford’s Focus has managed that by coming close to matching the roofed variants’ handling without feeling like it’s been carved from a lead billet.

They’ve even met the design challenge of making the car look equally good with the metal top up or down, with help from legendary Italian designers Pininfarina – who have penned quite a few high-end cars, including the occasional Ferrari and Maserati.

As you’d expect, there’s a strong Ital-chic flavour to the car from the A-pillar back, the part that Pininfarina developed to accommodate the Coupe-Cabriolet function. What’s surprising is how well they’ve segued the design from what is basically the Focus sedan/hatch nose (with a bit of extra chrome tarting up around the grilles and fog lights).

The best example is how the headlight wing sweep – arguably the best line on the donor car – now flows along the rising window-line and blends into the C-pillar’s subtle trailing slice that throws light along the side of the boot-lid, and visually trims what could otherwise be a bulbous butt.

It’s hard to decide if the C-C looks better with the powered two-piece roof up or down, but since it takes only 29 seconds to change it, you can indulge any indecision without too much time or effort. Just be careful not to do it when you’re backed close to a wall, because the boot lid slides back about 30cm to accommodate the operation.

A cargo separator stops the roof closing if your gear is piled too high, and boot space is excellent, offering a class-leading 534 litres with the roof up and 248 with it down. And unlike some other convertibles there’s enough of a gap with the roof folded to slide a small suitcase in and out, but sadly the spare wheel is a skinny 80km/h space saver.

The front row gets plenty of room, and with seats lowered 20mm, even plenty of headroom by convertible standards. The back seat is too snug for adults on a long trip, but the expected buyer for this car will only be taking friends for a chic cruise and very few will be strapping kids in the back – although it might see a lot of use carrying matching luggage or fashionable pets.

There’s a premium feel to the interior with quality materials and switchgear, very comfortable heated leather seats, cooled glove-box, automatic headlights, rain-sensing wipers, and a perimeter anti-theft alarm

The six-speaker Sony audio system has an iPod jack and offers better clarity than most standard systems – especially when you consider it has to fight wind noise — but still tends to diminish some of the high and low nuances.

There’s an extensive safety fit-out, including anti-skid brakes (20mm larger than on the sedan) with electronic brakeforce distribution for better effort and brake assist for panic situations, switchable stability control, traction control, twin front and front-side airbags.

In a crash, moveaway systems reduce the chance of you being speared by pedals or the steering wheel column, and 20cm rollover bars fire upwards in 0.10sec – breaking through the rear window if necessary — when their gyros detect things are about to go topsy-turvy.

Sits on 17” alloy wheels at each corner of an ultra stiff body with a rigid passenger safety shell and McPherson strut front/control blade rear suspension borrowed from the Focus Turbo.

The sole engine on offer in Australia is the 2.0-litre Duratec four-cylinder that develops the same 107kW of power at 6000rpm and 185Nm of torque at 4500rpm in the other Focus variants. This is mated to a five-speed manual for $45,490 that Ford says uses a low 7.5L/100km, or a four-speed sequential automatic for $2000 and 0.8L/100km more.

Options include metallic paint at no cost, 18” alloys for $1200 or reverse parking sensors for $500.

Ford says 100 of the cars are already at dealerships, and they hope to sell that many every month – with about 75 being the automatic option — in a segment that has grown 27 per cent over the past five years of this self-rewarding decade.

ON THE ROAD
The worth of the body’s extra stiffening shows in it feeling very solid under all conditions, but over rough sections things like the rearview mirror and other bits around the cabin succumb to a touch of rattling, which undermines the pleasure

There’s also a lot of top-down turbulence above 80km/h, which can be reduced a bit by putting all the windows up, but might be better addressed with the wind deflector on the accessory list. This would also prevent you leaving the indicator on after accidentally fumbling around the volume control stalk below it – as we did – for at least three postcodes before we heard it clicking its little heart away, probably to the annoyance of following traffic.

As with the rest of the Focus range, there’s responsive steering and good turn-in, with just a touch of understeer from the front wheel drive.

The short-throw manual shifter is smooth and definite, but at times when one of the five slots is too high and the next too low, you start to wish for an extra gear and shorter ratios

However it works well to motivate the engine, which also appears in the sedan/hatch but is working against an extra weight penalty of 150kg in the Coupe-Cab. Add in a couple of adults and a steep hill, and it starts to get overburdened, even with the engine’s otherwise usefully flat torque curve.

The four-speed automatic, while quite a good thing in itself – especially with the effortless shifting on the simulated manual side – isn’t quite up to keeping the engine aroused unless you have the revs bubbling, but does make boulevard cruising a breeze.

And that’s really the natural habitat for the car. It wants to glide along the café strips with the occasional weekend tour out in the country. And for those purposes it’s a well-sorted and better equipped package rivals at the same price level.

Ford Focus Coupe-Cabriolet
ENGINE: 2.0-litre Duratec four-cylinder
POWER: 107kW at 6000rpm
TORQUE: 185Nm at 4500rpm
PRICE: $45,490 five-speed manual (7.5L/100km), $47,490 four-speed sequential automatic (8.3L/100km)