Ford out of focus

By Alastair Sloane

Ford is highly unlikely to sell its British-built hatchback Focus, the 1999 European Car of the Year, in New Zealand. For one thing, it would cost too much compared with mainstream Japanese hatchbacks like the Mazda 323, Toyota Corolla and Nissan Pulsar.

There is talk that Ford Australia might import a 2-litre GT variant of the Focus to rival the Peugeot 306XSi and the Volkswagen Golf GT and that such a car might find its way across, the Tasman.

But Australia sells more than 700,000 new cars a year. New Zealand sells about 60,000.

Officially importing and setting up support services for an orphan model like the Focus GT doesn't make much economic sense to Ford New Zealand chief Nigel Wark - although he concedes the car, if it does eventually reach the Australian market, might be imported privately.

So pretty much the only chance New Zealanders will get to see a Focus is when the rally models arrive for July's championship event. One will be driven by Colin McRae, the 1995 world champion.

Ford built the Focus rally car in England and Germany in 317 days, well under the 18 months or so it traditionally takes to get a World Rally Car up and running.

It was built by Britain's M-Sport performance specialist in December 1997. M-Sport was set up a year earlier to run Ford's rally campaigns.

In January 1998, M-Sport staff viewed a fibreglass mockup at Ford's German technological centre in Cologne.

A month later production premises were finished at Millbrook, in the English Midlands, two prototype body shells had been delivered and contracts signed with engine and gearbox manufacturers Mountune and Xtrac.

By May the roll cage was finished and computers had analysed what sort of stress it could cope with. By July, the first sets of suspension components were being fitted.

All along, said Ford, the M-Sport team was mindful of the need to place all major components low down and within the wheelbase of the car, in an effort to get as close as possible to a 50:50 front-and-rear weight distribution, the perfectly balanced car.

In September, the prototype WRC four-wheel-drive Focus was unveiled at the Paris motor show. Within a few weeks the car got its gearbox and engine and on October 22 it took to the test track for the first time.

On November 15 homologation papers were submitted to the FIA, the sport's governing body, and 10 days later the car was unveiled to the media.

But Ford and M-Sport are still coy about some components. Said Guenther Steiner, M-Sport project manager: "What's inside the gearbox is radical and we look forward to revealing more about it. But for now what goes on inside the
gearbox must remain a secret."

The six-speed sequential Xtrac 240 gearbox is crucial to the car's weight distribution.

It is mounted low down and longitudinally along the imaginary centre line of the Focus and behind the 2-litre Zetec E turbocharged engine, which sits east-west in the engine bay and is tilted back by 25 degrees to again aid balance.

Said Steiner: "From day one, we wanted to use a longitudinal gearbox. A transverse box would have worked but it has limitations. The longitudinal gearbox can be mounted lower and further back in the chassis."

The rally car's standing weight distribution front and rear is 58:42, compared with the road car's 60:40.

But the rear wing, something that

M-Sport first thought it could do without, provides enough downforce at high speed to give the car what M-Sport was searching for, a 50:50 weight split.