Styling

When it debuted, the Ford Focus was cutting edge – literally. It was one of Ford's short-lived “New Edge” designs, a mish-mash of triangular details blended with rounded forms, but it has admittedly aged well. Besides, those funky fender flares now grace the flanks of the 2007 Mercedes-Benz S-Class – look how far ahead of its time the Focus was! A styling refresh for 2005 added a nice mesh grille and a revised interior, giving the car a more conventional but still handsome appearance. The last remaining design oddities are the high-mounted taillights in the hatchback's rear roof pillars, but after seven years on the market they've lost their ability to polarize the public. Today, the Focus is just another small car, good looking but aging rapidly. We did, however, like the two-tone black-over-gray interior of our test car, which lent it an air of sophistication it would have otherwise lacked.