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The Ford Focus has emerged victorious at the first-ever Consumer Awards held by motoring website Cars.co.za. The Focus 1.0 EcoBoost Trend five-door was awarded the Best Compact Car title at the glittering industry awards function held in Johannesburg Friday night.
According to the judges, comprising seasoned motoring journalists Hannes Oosthuizen, Ashley Oldfield and David Taylor: “This Focus offers astonishing value and performance for the money, as well as C-segment features and space at B-segment pricing.
“Powered by the acclaimed 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine, the Focus offers an appealing mix of power and performance.”
They added: “Ford must have sharpened its pencils a lot to offer this much car at such a low price. The Focus offers a very strong spread of talents.”
According to the organisers, the goal of the Cars.co.za Consumer Awards is “to establish the most prestigious, credible and influential awards programme in the South African motoring industry. These awards are presented to the vehicles judged to represent the best buys in their respective categories in South Africa.”
The intensive judging process was made up of several stages, led by the experienced team of motoring journalists from Cars.co.za, along with three guest judges, comprising consumer journalist Wendy Knowler, The Daily Maverick editor, Branko Brkic and Business Day editor, Zibi Songezo.
Vehicle owners also provided crucial input by means of the Cars.co.za Owner Satisfaction Survey, developed in association with leading automotive data specialist, Lightstone Consumer. Thousands of South African car owners completed the online survey, rating their cars for reliability, after-sales service, cost of ownership and general satisfaction, and these results were factored into the final scores along with related resale value data.
“The Focus has been a very successful product for Ford around the world, and the updated model we introduced last year has taken it to even greater heights with trend-setting style, quality and features,” says Tracey Delate, General Marketing Manager, Ford Motor Company Sub-Saharan Africa Region.
“This award bears testimony to the unrivalled combination of peerless design, quality, technology and safety in the new Focus, as well as the simply remarkable performance of the 1.0 EcoBoost engine.”
Indeed, this outstanding three-cylinder engine punches well above its capacity, having dominated the sub-1-litre category of the International Engine of the Year competition from 2012 to 2015, and winning the overall title three years in a row.
It produces an impressive 92kW of power and 170Nm of torque, yet uses as little as 5.0 l/100km* in the combined cycle with a correspondingly low CO2 emissions figure of just 116 g/km.
