It is easy to imagine that many people walk past this Ford Focus without even looking for a second. Especially when you see the rear, you would not immediately say that there is a special car. Even at the nose, it is possible that you do not see anything special. At the front, it looks like a Mondeo from that time, while at the back it initially looks like a Focus I hatchback. But a closer look shows that there is more going on there too. To start with, we see a front bumper that protrudes much further to the rear than we are used to. That is already a strong hint at the origin of this Focus, because this is a Ford Focus from the United States. The most special thing about such an American Focus is the nose, which, as mentioned, looks quite a bit like that of the Ford Mondeo from the beginning of this century. We are dealing here with the facelifted American Focus. During that facelift, it exchanged the nose that strongly resembled that of ‘our’ first Focus for this more Mondeo-like snout. At the time, it was a fairly drastic facelift, because the Focus I had to last much longer in North America than ours. This refresher appeared in 2004, while we were already welcoming a completely new (and not intended for America) second generation of the Ford Focus. The interior was also given a major overhaul during the facelift. A striking appearance in the Dutch streetscape, not least because of its bright yellow paint. Although the color, the sporty aftermarket wheels and the flashy ‘ZX3’ on the tailgate might make you think that we have a sporty version in front of us, nothing could be further from the truth. ZX3 in the US simply indicated that you had the three-door Focus. This is a perfectly normal Focus hatchback like you could often come across in the US at the time. By Dutch standards, it has a fairly large engine with its 2-liter four-cylinder. That was the basis there, while here it started with 1.4s. The Ford Focus, which is now twenty years old, came to the Netherlands before its first birthday. In 2022, the first Dutch owner (or perhaps the one who brought it from North America) said goodbye to the car. So he remained loyal to the Focus for quite a long time. The current owner has been driving it for almost two years to the day. We are curious whether that person consciously opted for such an American Focus, or simply needed a means of transport for a small amount and perhaps does not even know that it is not just any Focus. AutoWeek forum member Afentoe certainly knew, we thank him very much for sharing these photos in our spotter topic!
Source: www.autoweek.nl
