Carmall.com - Taking place in the Menteng area (8/8), PT Ford Motor Indonesia (FMI) introduced their new variant, the All-New Ford Focus. There were two models launched that day, the sedan and the hatchback version with two engine choices, 1.6L AT and 2.0L AT.

In this introduction event to the media, there was one unique perspective revealed by Bagus Susanto, the Managing Director of PT FMI. "The All-New Ford Focus has many edges over its rival, in this matter, the Toyota Altis and the Honda Civic. Several features fitted in the New Focus, though not entirely new, are features usually found on higher or more expensive cars," said Bagus.

"The bottomline, these features are easy to operate to help provide a fun driving experience for drivers," Bagus added.

Carmall.com became somewhat interested in digging deeper into these new ammunition on the new Ford variant with the hope of providing additional reference for those of you who want this car parked in your driveway.

Smart Technology Preview

Though still reluctant to tell us the price tag of this newest addition to the line up, Christian Abram Gandawinata as the Product Planing & Pricing Strategy Manager of PT FMI was more than willing to explain the benefits of the All-New Ford Focus compared to its two closest rivals, the Altis and the Civic.

"The All-New Ford Focus is an elegant, sophisticated, smart and pleasant vehicle to drive. Its transformative position and setting of new standard in its class are achieved by implementing the four brand pillars of Ford; Quality, Green, Safe and Smart," explained Christian.

Quality Focus

In terms of quality of driving comfort, there are at least three benefits provided, from its 23.55mm balancing bar to reduce body roll effect, premium damper valves to minimize suspension noise, and optimum insulators to minimise vibration while increasing the vehicle's dynamics in cornerings.

Its development is also claimed to be worked by Ford's global development team by applying comparisons with a number of its toughest rivals in the world. Aside from that, in order to maintain a consistent construction quality across the many parts of the world, all Ford assembling facilities use 80% of the same components.

Its driving sensation is accommodated by the application of Torque Vectoring Control, a system that contains several benefits, including limited-slip differential (LSD), better traction in cornerings, better power-on understeering, and a longer tyre lifespan. To refresh your memory, the LSD application is for preventing traction-losing tyres from receiving 100% power, which could endanger everyone in the car.

The All New Focus' built is now 55% reinforced with high-strength steel to provide several benefits, including better vehicle rigidity and dynamics, and lower noise and vibration levels.

Green Focus

This Ford's first engine in this vehicle class uses the twin independent variable camshaft timing (Ti-VCT) technology, claimed to be able to increase performance, as well as save fuel. This is further strengthened by the application of the PowerShift automatic transmission, claimed as the most efficient transmission in its class.

According to FMI's press release, this 1.6L four-cylinder engine with six-speed powershift transmission has a 15.4 km/l fuel consumption level, while the 2.0L is at around 14.9 km/l.

Safe Focus

Active safety features carried in the All-New Focus include ABS, ESP, Emergency Brake Assist and Hill Launch Assist.

While the passive features include sophisticated front airbags with larger curve-shaped tether system, resulting in increased protection to the driver's chest. Then there are the side curtain airbags, tailor rolling (steel sheet construction for strengthening the B-pillars), SPACE (Slide Protection and Cabin Enhancement) to provide safety for the passengers and absorb collision force.

Smart Focus

Amongst the four pillars of the Ford brand, Smart Focus pushes the fun factor of driving to be more noticable, wherein some of these features are claimed to be first-applied inside a car of this segment in the ASEAN region. Those features are:

Active City Stop: This feature uses information from light detection and ranging to help decrease the collision force, even in some cases hinder it entirely. This system will be activated once the speed reaches 30km/hour.

Active Park Assist: The ability to park in a space that is only 1.2 times the vehicle's length. Simply by pressing a button, the ultrasonic sensor will find a big enough parking slot for you to pass. The driver only needs to press the gas or brake pedal and switching the gear to drive or reverse. Meanwhile the steering wheel direction will be operated automatically by the integrated system.

Blind Spot Information System: Uses a radar sensor on each sides of the All New Focus to detect hidden vehicle in its blind spot direction, and it will signal a warning through an orange light on the side-view mirrors.

Ford Sync: This technology comes from Microsoft and it will connect you to almost every type of cell-phones or digital media player to your new Focus using Bluetooth and USB connection simultaneously. Uninterrupted connection, voice commanding your cell-phone and texting a friend are all made possible while driving using this system. Unfortunately this voice command system can only applied using English.

"Even for a woman like me, the features application and sophisticated systems installed inside this All New Ford Focus makes me very excited to drive it, because it's so much fun", said Lea Kartika Indra, Communication Director PT Ford Motor Indonesia.