The new Ford Focus will be available in Kenya from end of January, the model elevates the world's best selling nameplate with a bolder, more emotive exterior design, a finely crafted, intuitive new interior, and a suite of new or improved driver assistance technologies.

According to Ezio Tuniz Regional Manager, Ford Sub Saharan Africa, the company is looking to make the world's most popular car even better with a stunning new version of the Focus. New Focus marries modern design, advanced technology and excellent fuel efficiency with the fun-to-drive DNA for which Focus is rightly acclaimed.

Refined Design

The new model comes with more sophisticated and advanced Focus with a redesign to reflect the One Ford global design language. Available in four- and five-door and wagon body-styles, the new Focus has a lower, wider stance, with a new bonnet, front fascia and grille. The bonnet is sculpted with a dynamic shape from the front pillar to the corners of the upper part of the inverted trapezoidal grille to deliver a strong, proud look.

Slimmer, chiselled front headlamps and elongated fog-lamps add to the bolder front end. Subtle chrome details add to the feeling of elegance while the rear of the car is sleeker. The vision was to add more emotion to the design of Focus by incorporating our very latest face of Ford. The new Focus is more toned, and more athletic, with more refined surface language; and clearly offers a promise of the drive experience to come."

When redesigning the interior of the new Focus, Ford listened to customer feedback and responded with a more intuitive layout, complemented by a steering wheel and central stack with fewer controls and switches. The new black satin trim and chrome detailing contribute to a cleaner, more modern look.

The redesigned centre storage console offers more space as well as a new sliding, integrated armrest. The adjustable console is able to accommodate a variety of bottles and cups. Focus customers also will experience excellent interior quietness, achieved with thicker carpets, thicker side window glass, and improved engine bay insulation.

The rollout is response to a clear customer desire for more simplicity inside the car, creating a clearer visual connection between the key components and significantly reducing the number of buttons in the cabin.

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Fuel-efficient and fun-to-drive

New Focus will offer 92kW in the 1.6-litre petrol engine with either a five-speed manual or a six-speed PowerShift automatic gearbox available on Titanium models.

With enhanced handling and steering, the new Focus takes the model's exceptional driving dynamics and acclaimed fun-to-drive DNA to a new level. Ford engineers have delivered a more solid, responsive and connected-to-the-road feel by increasing the structural stiffness at the front, revising the suspension geometry, increasing lateral stiffness of "steering-relevant" suspension bushes, and retuning the shock absorbers.

The Electric Power Assisted Steering system is available on manual models and has been retuned to make the driver feel even more connected to the road. The new Focus also will be available with optional paddle-shift controls that enable drivers to control gear changes while keeping their hands on the steering wheel.

The highly acclaimed driving experience is further refined with improvements to noise, vibration and harshness that help deliver superb levels of interior quietness in Focus, and contribute to a more relaxing environment.

Advanced driving technologies

"New Focus offers a host of new and cutting-edge features and technologies, but at the same time this latest version has been refined and simplified," said Jim Baumbick, Ford's global C-car vehicle line director. "The sophisticated redesign has given Focus a new, fresh and modern style both inside and out, but the soul of Focus is the fun-to-drive feeling you get when you're behind the wheel, and we've not compromised on that – in fact, we've improved it."

Ford first launched the Focus in 1998 and since then more than 12 million have been sold worldwide. To meet growing customer demand for Focus, which is sold in more than 140 markets, Ford has now ramped up capacity worldwide to build the car in eight plants on four continents. Factories in Germany, U.S., Russia, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan and Argentina have a combined capacity to produce more than 1.5 million Focus vehicles annually.