Ford Focus MHEV Estate

THIRD REPORT: After running our wagon, Steve Walker feels he really needs to speak up in support of the estate

- Steve Walker

Fuel economy

43.3 Avg mpg

0.2 gal/h

I LOVE estate cars, but it's fair to say that the average UK family car buyer doesn't. If sales figures and the proliferation of different model types across the market are any indication, most people would much rather have an SUV.

And who can really blame them? Whereas the good-old estate was once the practical family car of choice, it was first usurped by the origami seating systems of MPVs, and then blown out of the water as SUVS transitioned from specialist rough-terrain tools to cars for all occasions. The traditional estate lacked versatility and seemed dull by comparison.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) classes SUVs as Dual Purpose Vehicles and tells us that 156,000 of them were sold in 2010. By 2019, before the pandemic hit, it was 562,000 - quite a jump. In 2022, Ford sold around 22,000 Kuga SUVs. It only shifted 800 examples of the similarly sized Focus Estate like our long-term test car. You get the picture.

The customer, of course, is nearly always right, but are they giving estates a fair hearing before deciding against the 'middle-aged antiques dealer' look and buying an SUV instead?

We decided to give our trusty Focus a shot at the champ by comparing it with not just any old SUV but one that, as an electric coupé-SUV, could be seen as a car teetering on the cutting edge of current market trends: the Skoda Enyaq Coupé.

Different

These are very different cars - it's a £35k Focus against a £55k Skoda in this vRS spec - but bear with me. They're similar in size (the Ford 14mm longer, the Skoda 50mm wider) and as examples of the SUV vs estate car contest, they work well.