Ford kills off the Focus ST and Fiesta ST hot hatches
Both remaining hot hatches in Ford Australia's vehicle inventory have been taken out to pasture. Here's what happened, why it happened - and what happens next for the one-trick Blue Oval pony...
It’s an unfortunate changing of the times for Ford fans, with both remaining hot hatches confirming their imminent appointments with Dr Kevorkian - at least, here in Australia.
So that’s it, no more hot little Fords. You’ll probably have to buy a Volkswagen or Renault now, if you want the authentic performance car ownership experience from hell. Or, if you want actual customer service, you could, of course, get a Hyundai i30 N or the new Subaru WRX.
Anyway. I do hate funerals.
You can feel it, can’t you, down there? He’s faking us all out.
Andrew Birkic there, the President and CEO of Ford Australia. Huge job. Huge. I don’t know how he copes. Senior problem whisperer, as I understand of the Ford Australia boardroom.
See what he did there? “Focus on emerging [whatever]”? Focus. This is what passes itself off as clever in automotive PR.
Notice how there was not even a moment of silence before getting out the buzzwords, applying them liberally and trying very hard to redirect your attention to how impossibly excellent the future will be? (Like how great Ford thinks in-car advertising will be.)
The car has only just been pronounced dead and they’re trying to push the next big thing for you to buy.
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THE IRONY OF FORD AUSTRALIA’S SURVIVAL
As you doubtless recall, Ford Australia already boned the non-ST Fiesta and Focus some yonks ago, and they killed off the Endura in 2020, the midsize SUV they couldn’t shift enough units of, incredibly enough. Imagine it: not being able to sell a midsize SUV, in Australia, in sufficient numbers. It’s literally the most popular category on sale.
So exactly why have we all been invited to yet another Ford Focus and Fiesta funeral?
Three key points here: Without the Ranger, Ford Australia would already have moved its head office to the Mariana Trench, right next to Holden. They’ve already set space aside for Honda, as I understand it.
Without Ranger there’s no Everest, right? It’s a shitbox derivative.
In the first six months of this year, Ford Australia has managed to inflict the curse of the blue-oval upon 28,562 innocent Australian victims. Same Ranger they botched the advertising on.
More than 23,000 of those vehicles were Rangers and Everests. That’s 80 per cent of total sales. Without the two bogan pacifiers, Ford Australia starts looking about as viable as Holden and Honda.
Point two: The evolution of the Aussie bogan. Today, there’s more mainstream tradie credibility embodied in a Ranger Wiltrak than some hot hatch designed to drive sideways on a public road, before blowing its head gasket out its arse. (I’m looking at you, soon to die Focus ST.)
Drive past your local TAFE some time. There’s no conga line of slammed WRXs and V8 Commodores and Falcons anymore. All the aspiring plumbers, carpenters and sparkies with all-new public hair, they all driving tomorrow’s Dingo Piss Creek adventurer; he (or she) drives a shitbox Hilux or Ranger with as much ARB ‘pimp’ as his meagre wages can afford.
He drifts off to sleep each night dreaming of 4WD modifications: 35-inch tyres, a four-inch lift, perhaps a cheeky stainless steel snorkel - even though he doesn’t yet own a holesaw quite that big for the front guard. There’s nothing he wants more than to break an axle at the weekend, in a metre of mud - with your daughter in the passenger’s seat.
This is where middle Australian car culture is, today.
Shame on you, Ford Australia, for approving a public statement that does not have the common decency to refrain from virtue signalling - at a funeral.
It is abundantly apparent, to those of us with an average IQ, that Ford Australia’s future is leveraged - heavily - on fitting the biggest, most absurd capacity internal combustion engines it can in its most philosophically antiquated, bogan-friendly CO2-belching shitboxes: new Ranger and Everest.
Ford just needs to admit the truth. To align its statements about itself with its behaviour. Ford’s viability into 2023 and beyond, in Australia, is built upon a foundation of selling the maximum number of least environmentally-friendly vehicles to the segment of society least disposed to giving a shit about climate change.
Ford cares about taking action on climate change, for real.
There’s nothing illegal about that - but it is nauseating (at least, to me) to see them attempt to get their lips around electrification, when in fact they’re even worse than Toyota at emitting CO2, and attempting to cloak the whole filthy enterprise in the language of environmental virtue.
I therefore challenge Ford Australia to send me a calendar invite. On behalf of society, I’d dearly like to know the exact date when the first all-electric Ranger towing a three-and-a-half tonne acoustically transparent aluminium caravan-based-toilet will darken the shores of Dingo Piss Creek.
And, pray tell: When it gets there, will the bogan faithful be overcome with orgasmic environmental joy, or will they burn this travesty to the ground for its heretical desecration of a deeply sacred site? Or will they simply cease to care (or even notice it)?
You’ll know the answer to this if you’ve ever been to the Summernats.
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