FORD FOCUS ESTATE

Two years from retirement, is our new arrival still one of the very best 'normal cars'?

- LUC LACEY

WHY WE'RE RUNNING IT

To crystallise our opinion of what we're all going to lose when the Focus retires

Well, doesn't this feel comfortingly conventional? For the next few months, I will be running a Ford Focus Estate. It's not an SUV, it doesn't want plugging in and it has a name that has been familiar for a long time.

Of course, it won't be for much longer, since Ford has announced that the Focus won't be replaced when its run ends in 2025. Is Ford making a mistake? Well, long-term reports aren't really the place to comment on a multi-billion-dollar global corporation's business sense, but we will find out just how much we're going to miss the Focus.

Although being back in a Focus feels pleasingly traditional, it isn't quite 2003 all over again. The fourth-generation Focus has just been treated to a facelift to see out its career. The redesigned LED headlights certainly look sharper than before, and inside there's now an absolutely massive i touchscreen (13.2in) that has usurped the physical climate controls.

This one is also a hybrid, allegedly. I hadn't clocked the badge on the boot lid proclaiming as much until someone pointed it out, because the car certainly doesn't drive very hybridly. That's because most of Ford's engines these days are mild hybrids. In other words, they get a 48V integrated starter-generator to give a bit of a boost under acceleration.

Every Focus apart from the hot ST is now powered by a turbocharged three-cylinder petrol unit with either 123bhp or 153bhp.