[Pac-man]

Looks like Lisa went out with a team to test drive a few of the Focus ST cars. See the pics at the Facebook page.

Focus ST Engineering Test Drive | Facebook

Pac-man

 

[Chad]

The questions regarding different colors of seats with car colors...

Answered:

 

[cessna]

really aweasome

 

[GWads]

I don't know if any else noticed this, but all the shots of the ST from behind show that it does not have the focus emblem on the left side (except the older black euro car). I for one hope this is how they come, I already had plans to remove the focus badge.

 

[cessna]

What's up with the hood gap?

 

[dem778]

What's up with the hood gap?

Yah. Wow. Every car has a huge hood gap. No way is that high quality and no way does it pass their "standard" clearance for gaps.

I noticed it on every single prototype they have there. The front bumper cover doesn't seem to match up well with the hood. The pictures on Ford's website must have been photoshopped.

 

[Chip]

Nice post!! Not sure what color I want yet.........

 

[petraman]

This looks like a simple case of misalignment, which would be fixed on the production level. According to Lisa, these were still all prototypes and were all adopted from standard Focii which, obviously, do not use that grille or hood. So I don't think we'll have anything to worry about...

 

[Pac-man]

I feel bad for Lisa. In a lot of the pics people are complaining about the gap in the hood and she just has to keep repeating herself that these are prototype cars.

Pac-man

 

[petraman]

I've been trying to go vigilante on that page, trying to clean it up and such. It's amazing how many illiterate children are on that page. They don't know how to do a proper search and they like to HIGHLIGHT CERTAIN WORDS WITH CAPITAL LETTERS which doesn't make much sense to me.... Oh well... Still, I want to try to take a little weight of Lisa's back so she can get to the real questions (if there are any left that she can answer, that is... haha)

 

[Chad]

I am starting to see how dangerous social media is for this car. Those people are eating any oddity up.

Although I love the concept of being there along the process, but their pre-production cars have too many errors between each other. And the hood gap.... Image is everything.

But... I still really like the fact that they shared their trip with us. It's great.

However nit-pickers ruin it...

 

[Telecaster2]

I personally find this set of pictures pretty exciting. It suggests that the ST is getting ever closer to production. It's fun to see the production colors in a setting more real than the "flash" colors on the ST website. The white is stunning. Screaming tangerine looks better than I thought it would - I could see myself driving that color. Still wishing that Ford was offering the pearl red and charcoal metallic that look so terrific on the Focus Titanium. But all of the colors seem to look great.

I've been looking at the hood gap on production Focus when I run across them in parking lots, etc. lately. While it seems a bit large, it looks just fine in person. So, I'm not particularly concerned about the gap.

It's a little bittersweet to see this great photo set with multiple pictures of Jost Capito, only to learn that he is leaving Ford for VW. My sense is that Jost has been the heart behind the Focus ST program. I'm sorry to see him go.