The Ford Focus has been voted the UK’s most popular car of the decade, according to a new poll by Auto Trader. The small family car has trumped sports cars, SUVs and city cars to take pride of place for the noughties.
Despite the company being rocked by financial issues in the past ten years, Ford has remained an iconic motoring brand, with two of its other cars – the Ford Fiesta and Ford Mondeo – also coming high in the list of most loved cars by the British public.
The Auto Trader poll, designed to analyse the key motoring trends over the past ten years, also looked at categories including ‘greenest’ car and ‘best value for money’ car.
“From the emergence of eco-friendly cars as a viable option for consumers to the replacement of maps and asking for directions with in-car sat nav, the noughties have provided some interesting changes to the way consumers think about and drive their cars,” said Mr Matt Thompson, Marketing Director, Auto Trader.
The UK’s most popular cars of the decade are listed below:
Most popular car:
- Ford Focus
- Ford Fiesta
- BMW 3 Series
- Ford Mondeo
- Vauxhall Astra
Best value for money car:
- Fiat Panda
- Skoda Superb
- Toyota Aygo/Citroen C1/Peugeot 107
- Kia C’eed
- Citroen Xsara Picasso
Best green car:
- Toyota Prius
- Volkswagen Polo Bluemotion
- G-Wiz
- Honda Insight
- Toyota Aygo/Citroen C1/Peugeot 107
3 out of 5 most popular cars in the UK are Fords! Now that is good advertising!
And on top of that, voted Top Gear’s coolest Car Maker in the polls! Even if the TG crew love Lancia (which I don’t blame them…a la’ group B..yum! :))
I think Jeremy would have had a hand in voting Ford so highly!
That’s because Ford Euro’s have proven themselves well against their rivals
If Ford could somehow lift the fact that their euros are top notch then they would start outselling my beloved commodore. From a Holden standpoint i dont want them to succeed, but for the sake of competition and thousands of jobs i hope they do.
Don’t forget, the UK Focus is built in Europe – perhaps the fact they don’t have to put up with the trashy build quality of the South African built Focuses had something to do with its high ranking.
That gripe aside, the Focus is undeniably good to drive – at least the LX was. The base model CL on base 15″ wheels was less convincing.
Thats rubbish.
Toxic Horse, i’ve owned a SA built Focus (Zetec) and a Euro built one too (XR5).
I can tell you right now that the XR5 feels more solid and better built than the SA built ones straight away. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say SA built Focii are Trashy…far from it in fact, The Euro built ones do seem to have an over all better fit, finish and feel.
I think both Euro and SA built car’s are great..just the Euro built ones are better ;)
All SA built cars are rubish. Ask anyone who has owned a SA built Golf GTI to tell you how bad they are. Constant problems. Why do the auto manufacturers build them there? Because it’s cheap! BMW are rethinking the whole SA experiment after bad quality reports. It’s not just the way the cars are put together but a lot of the parts are locally sourced and despite having to pass BMW QC, the local manufacturing over time just isn’t up to scratch or consistant.
I would not touch a SA built car no matter what the brand. Just like I wouldn’t touch a Korean or anything built in SE Asia either or China. If it’s not built in Japan or Germany, then I’m affraid it’s never going to be as good as you can get. Now if the Japs just used better materials like softer plastics etc they would have the best built cars on the planet period!
Toxic Horse, Why is it rubbish? Ever owned an SA-built Focus? Ever compared one to a Euro built one?
It goes to show how long it takes to wear a groove into a market.
Ford dumped the Laser (much loved here) in favour of the better packaged and top euro selling focus.
Surely anyone would have thought that bringing a much loved euro product here it would also boom???
Not so. What they actually did was hand their market share straight to the Corolla.
The small car market is a market mainly females buy in, and they seek comfort in familiarity.
Just out of interest I would like to wind back the clock, and throw Laser badges on the Focus when they first landed here.
Most other manufacturers do it in the aim of retaining their customers, and I reckon its a key factor.
Nissan also fell victim to the same situation me thinks, all the while the Corolla is laughing at them gobbling up the homeless Laser and Pulsar drivers
Andrew I guess you were living under a rock for the last half of the 90s. The Laser stopped being popular after the locally-built KF/KH models – the KJ was too pricey and poorly positioned, while the KN fell victim to Mazdas dull styling experiment of the time. By the time the Focus came around the Laser name was as good as dead. The only regretful thing for Ford Australia was that they weren’t fast enough to secure the first generation Focus in 1999.
Yes and No,
The Focus cam in when the new car market was starting to boom, and small cars was one of the biggest growth market.
Sure the Focus should have come earlier, I agree, but the name familiarity also gave it a huge blow.
If Ford had the Focus into our market place at the right time, that would have still only done half the job.
They still needed the name for familiarity stakes.
Why do you think Holden rebadges for eg????
Do you think they would sell as many Holden Kalos as they do Barinas??
i would agree. i have had our Focus since 2004 (Zetec 5 Sp Hatch) and enjoy driving it.we looked at the Sth African version during servicing of our Made in Germany.i didn’t think it drove as good although there was improvements, this year we gave our car a complete re spray. set of new 205/50/16 tyres (expensive tyres), a new timing belt, fuel injectors cleaned, front and rear disc rotors and pads, should be good for a few more years. i would like to know the difference in the Uk version to ours, and Perhaps Ford Australia should have promtoed this car better here. like the mondeo it will be a slow seller for ford. Perhaps not the Mondeo wagon which looks great compared to the Ve wagon which i would buy tomorrow.