Launched at the Geneva Motor Show in 1998, the Ford Focus replaced the Escort which had been in production for the previous thirty years. The Focus had a lot to live up to, but in 1999 it won European Car of the Year.

A performance or sporting variant of compact Fords had always been popular, so the 2002 Sports Technology application to the Focus, called ST170, was bound to be well-received. With a 2.0-litre Duratec engine, fuel injection and variable valve timing (VVT), the car was swift but was always outshone by the Focus RS (Rally Sport) that had been released only a year earlier.

With more than two million units of sales over the course of its production, it was announced in 2022 that the Focus would be discontinued by 2025 as Ford align their future work to developing electrification and crossovers (a cross between a car and a Sports Utility Vehicle, like the Ford Kuga).