"We’re proud to celebrate the production of the 400,000th Ford Focus, which was launched here in China four years ago," said Jeffrey Shen, President of CFMA. "With its outstanding styling and drivability, world-class engineering and safety, Ford Focus is firmly established as a star product in China’s highly competitive mid-sized car market. The success of this exciting car reflects Ford’s commitment to the Chinese market – to always provide our Chinese customers with products they want and value."
To give you an idea on how successful the Focus is in China, Ford says the company delivered more than 10,000 units in July, which represents the fifth consecutive month when this particular model exceeds the 10,000 unit mark. Through the first seven months of this year, Ford brand vehicle sales were 123,474 units, representing a 21.5% increase over the same period last year.
While the Focus records very high sales in each corner of the world, its sporty version, the RS, will only remain available to Europeans. At least for now. Jost Capito, in charge of Ford's performance road cars in Europe, said in May that Ford does not plan to bring the Focus RS in the United States, especially because the company would have to engineer a different version to comply with local regulation, a requirement which, in the context of such a difficult economic environment, is too expensive.
"It would be too costly to engineer different engines for Europe and North America. Remember that powerplants are downsizing and getting closer in concept in North America and Europe, like the new EcoBoost turbo engines," he said in the interview. But the Focus RS won't be launched in the United States, he said. "We’d like to, but the base car isn’t homologated for North America, and that’s too costly a job to carry out just for a niche vehicle like the RS."
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