Ford Focus facing the axe globally

Ford has announced global production of its Focus small car will end in November this year, 27 years after it was launched in Europe back in 1998.

Introduced in Australia a little after in 2002, the Ford Focus remained on sale here for two decades and four-generations before being axed alongside the Fiesta in 2022 due to slowing small car sales and production bottlenecks caused by the global semi-conductor crisis.

More than 12 million Focus models have been sold globally, including more than 260,000 in Australia.

Sales peaked here back in 2013 when the Blue Oval shifted an impressive 19,180 units, but by 2015, deliveries had more than halved to 7112 sales and the decline continued to such an extent that at the end of its life, the brand only sold the high-performance Focus ST Down Under.

In 2023, the last year the Focus was sold locally, only 39 cars found homes.

The move to stop producing the Focus echoes a similar decision by Ford of Europe to axe the Fiesta supermini after 46 years of continuous sales, leaving the Mustang as the only non-SUV or commercial vehicle in the global line-up.

Reflecting the changing tastes of buyers, when Focus sales peaked in 2013, small cars represented 23 per cent of total sales in Australia. Fast forward to today and they account for less than seven per cent of local deliveries.

Not that the Blue Oval has missed either the Focus or Fiesta since they were culled.

Last year Ford Australia celebrated more than 100,000 sales for the first time since 2008 when both the Focus and locally-made Falcon ruled the roost when it came to sales.

In 2024 it was the Ranger ute that accounted for an incredible 62.5 per cent of all volumes, with the closely-related ute-based Everest SUV raising the total share to 90 per cent of all vehicles sold.

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