Ford Focus FFV (2007) CAR review

Tell me future boy, what’s it like to drive?

Dissapointingly, it feels exactly like any other Focus. No flashing lights, whirring noises or black smoke belching from the exhaust. It’s quiet, refined, quick to rev – exactly what you’d expect from a Focus. The FFV cracks 62mph in 10.3sec (matching the petrol version) and returns a reasonable 40mpg – up only 0.6mpg over the standard car. Unlike the Lotus Exige Bio-Ethanol, the Focus can be filled up with any combination of conventional petrol or ethanol making it far more usable.

Anything else?

Ford hopes to sell around 200 Focus FFVs annually around Somerset where the wheat is refined into ethanol; if the fuel takes off in the UK, clearly that figure could blossom. In other markets around the world, Ford is selling vast numbers of FFV models. But in the UK today, the cost of ethanol is roughly the same as petrol which, along with limited supply of fuel, harms its appeal to the mainstream market. In Sweden however, where ethanol costs 40 percent less than petrol, the FFV accounts for 80 percent of all Focii sold.