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Date: Thursday, May 2, 2002 Section: RIDE
Edition: FINAL Page: F1
Source: Jim Scoutten, Special to the Sentinel
Type: FEATURE
IT'S ALL ABOUT FUNCTION FOR FORD SVT,
THE FOCUS IS ON PERFORMANCE
 Granted, there are racier-looking new products on the market aimed at youthful buyers who value performance and
economy. Cars like the Pontiac Vibe and the Mazda Protege5 sport wagon may look more like street racers from last year's hit
film The Fast and the Furious. But Ford's SVT Focus is more about function than looks.
Andy Slankard says that is the Special Vehicle Team tradition: "We're not about
paint and tape. We're not about odd spoilers that don't really do anything. Everything has a function with this car."
Slankard is the SVT Focus program manager, the member of Ford's in-house
high-performance engineering team charged with seeing the new Focus model through creation and into production. SVT's mission is to take existing Ford
products and re-engineer them so they appeal to a limited, but sophisticated, new market willing to spend a little extra.
 They have taken the Mustang Cobra, the race-ready Mustang Cobra R, and the 380-horsepower F150 Lightning
sport truck to market through a network of about 700 Ford dealers, who are authorized to sell and service SVT vehicles. (Check svtford.com to find a dealer near you -- there are
quite a few in Central Florida.)
"That's what SVT is all about -- exclusivity, performance, substance," Slankard
says. "That's what we're all about with Cobras and Lightnings, so we have to do it with the Focus." For the Mustang Cobra and the F-150 Lightning, SVT started with
production models, then made them into limited-edition high-performance models. Now they've done the same thing with the inexpensive three-door hatchback from the Focus line, the ZX-3.
There are a few styling touches to set the SVT Focus apart from lesser forms of the
ZX-3 hatchback, but the changes are subtle: darkened headlamp glass, egg-crate intake grills in a new front fascia with a small black air dam at the bottom. The
rocker panels beneath the doors get a hint of ground-effects sculpting, and there's a small spoiler above the rear hatch.
It's the wheels and tires that suggest the Focus SVT is
a serious player: They are 17-inch Continental sport tires mounted on five-spoke alloy wheels. And there's a raspy note to the free flow exhaust, one more hint this car is a competitor.
 Most of the engineering work has been done under the short hood, where SVT has bumped up Ford's Zetec 2.0-liter,
dual-camshaft four-cylinder engine. A new intake manifold, a high-flow exhaust header and a higher compression ratio produce a 40-horsepower increase over the stock engine. The SVT Focus is rated at 170
horsepower and is equipped with a six-speed manual transmission.
John Coletti, SVT's chief engineer and a certified legend in performance car circles,
says that this combination of engine and transmission is the key to enjoying this car. "At the end of the day, the power train is the heart of the car. It all starts there."
Coletti says once they were happy with the power train, they moved on to improving handling and braking. "We don't like doing one-dimensional cars. It's the complete
car that we're after, and it has to be balanced. `Balance' is a word we use a lot in the office."
And balance is what we found on the track. Our testing at Willow Springs Raceway
in California showed the SVT Focus to be great fun and very capable. Push it hard through the corners and eventually the big tires will give up, releasing in predictable
understeer, as you'd expect in a front-wheel-drive car.
Braking is impressive with the Focus SVT needing just 170 feet to panic stop from
70 mph, thanks to the standard four-wheel disc brakes with anti-lock.
And although acceleration isn't comparable to the rush of an SVT Mustang Cobra, it
is respectable. Launching to 60 mph in 7.8 seconds, with a quarter-mile time of 16.1 seconds at 87 mph.
SVT has balanced (there's that word again) the performance upgrades with interior
upgrades for driver and passenger. The bucket seats are leather-trimmed and come from the European version of the Ford Focus, with better side bolstering to help
keep you planted in your chair while slicing through corners. The gauges are the traditional SVT white and the limits are big numbers -- a 7,500 rpm redline on the
tachometer, next to the optimistic 160 mile-per-hour speedometer. Two additional gauges, oil pressure and temperature, keep an eye on the health of the hot four-cylinder engine.
There is a very short list of options: a high-watt stereo with CD changer and
subwoofer in the cargo area, a sunroof option, and a winter package with heated seats for Northern markets. Color choices? Just four: red, blue, silver or black.
There's no question SVT has found a new set of performance limits for the ZX-3
hatchback that has won a place on the Car and Driver magazine 10 best list since the first year of production. The SVT Focus now goes to market as a high performance street racer for the young enthusiast.
And as a limited edition of just 7,500 vehicles, it's likely the Special Vehicles Team
is going to take 7,500 bites out of Honda's share of the youth market. The price is right for the assignment. Base price for the SVT Focus is $17,995. Add everything
on the short option list and you're still under $20,000 -- a pretty modest amount that buys much better performance than we expected for that kind of money, thanks to
the wizards Ford's SVT. Put your order in early: We predict a serious shortage of the newest idea to join in the Generation Y street racer games.
THE CONTENDERS
The car:
Ford SVT Focus: 170 horsepower, 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine
The competition:
Honda Civic Si: 160 horsepower, 2.0-liter 4-cylinder
Nissan Sentra SE-R: 165 horsepower, 2.5-liter 4-cylinder
Pontiac Vibe GT: 180 horsepower, 1.8-liter 4-cylinder
Dodge Neon R/T: 150 horsepower, 2.0-liter 4-cylinder
Volkswagen Golf GTI: 180 horsepower, 1.8-liter 4-cylinder
Hyundai Tiburon: 181 horsepower, 2.7-liter V-6
Jim Scoutten is a contributing editor for Car and Driver magazine, and
host of Car and Driver Television, which airs weekends on cable network TNN.
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