Every week, I go through my emails and the comments of these lovely pages to find a new Holy Grail to write about. At the same time, Autopian Publisher Matt Hardigree has been submitting his own suggestion as a grail. He’s suggested the same car for about a month now and I think it’s time to shine a light on it before he slaps a Houston Astros logo on one of my Smarts.
The Focus Gave The Escort The Boot
The history of the Ford Focus started with the Escort. As Automotive News reported in 1996, Ford was developing a replacement for the Escort under the codename CW170. A world car, this vehicle was positioned to replace the Escort both in America and in Europe. It would release in Europe first in the 1998 model year before landing in America for the 1999 model year. The Escort was getting a new generation, too, but this new car was going to represent Ford’s small car effort into the New Millennium. In 1998, the Focus hit the 1998 Geneva Motor Show. It was reportedly a shock to show attendees, as it was such a radical departure from what was expected from Ford. The Focus sported ideas from previous concepts like the high-mount taillights while designer John Doughty draped the car in Jack Telnack’s sleek “New Edge” styling. A polarizing design philosophy, it had already been applied to the Ford Ka and the Cougar (Mercury Cougar here).
The funky design continued in the interior, and the whole car seemed to split car journalists at the time. Check out this archived Edmunds review:
And here’s an archived review from the engineers at Machine Design: Despite the polarization, the Focus was awarded the 1999 European Car of the Year, beating other iconic cars in a landslide. The Focus scored 444 points while the Opel Astra grabbed second with 272 points, the Peugeot 206 securing third with 249 points, and the Audi TT trailing in fourth with 235 points. That one surprises me, as the first-generation TT has a restrained, elegant design that I wish we got more of in today’s landscape of angry edges.
Targeted At The Youth
No matter the market, the intended demographic for the Focus was clear. Ford really wanted to sell these to young people, reportedly Generation X. I took a stroll through the Ford Heritage Vault and found brochures for the Focus. They featured colorful pictures, snazzy fonts, and the kinds of hip young people that Ford thought would want to drive a Focus. Today, an automaker might get mocked for trying so hard to attract the “yutes.” I dig these brochures, they have a bit of an old-school racing game vibe to them. While I could not find data for the first-generation Focus, Ford reported that in 2017, the average age of a regular Focus buyer was 46, and the average age of a Focus ST buyer was 36.
In an effort to further boost the Focus as a young person’s car, Ford joined the ranks of just a few manufacturers to sell a car that came with a bicycle on its roof. In 1996, Volkswagen sold the Jetta Trek. It sounds like a Star Trek-themed car, but you got a Jetta with theming from the bicycle company, including a roof rack. The next year, The Volkswagen Jetta Trek came with even more Trek badging. Apparently, this car was targeted toward budget-minded car buyers and cyclists. In 2000, Ford joined Saab in offering its own bicycle-inspired limited edition. At the Chicago Auto Show, Saab gave you the Gary Fisher mountain bike racing team-sponsored Saab 9-5 Gary Fisher. That one got you a 9-5 wagon with an Aero body kit, three-spoke wheels, and a mountain bike. Ford? It rolled into the Los Angeles Auto Show with the Ford Focus Wagon Kona Concept.
The Focus Kona Mountain Bike Edition
Like those other cars, Ford teamed up with a bicycle company. This one was Kona USA, a company founded in 1988 in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was founded by cyclists Dan Gerhard and Jacob Heilbron. The pair worked with Mountain Bike Hall of Fame rider Joe Murray to create a line of hardtail bikes. Kona has the distinction of being the first brand to make an entire range of mountain bike frames with a sloped tube design. Kona’s bikes were so good that Kona dealer Bow Cycle says that Kona won the 1993 “Bike of the Year” from Mountain Biking magazine for its Kilauea cycle. This is to say that Ford chose what sounds like a neat brand to pair with its car. The Kona Mountain Bike Edition started off as a concept car based on the Focus wagon. As a production car, the Kona Mountain Bike Edition was based on the Focus ZX3 hatch. The highlight feature was a bolted-down luggage rack and a fork-mount bike rack. Perched on it was a 2001 Kona Blast bike that at the time, was available only by purchasing this car. In addition to that, the car came with custom side moldings that resembled a bike tread, special seat covers, 16-inch wheels custom floormats, and a “Dirt” color that was specific to the Kona Mountain Bike Edition.
A neat quirk that I like is that the seat covers were designed to be removed and machine-washed. After all, you might be covered in dirt after a fun bike ride. Under the hood of the Focus Kona Mountain Bike Edition resides a 2.0-liter four making 130 HP and 135 lb-ft torque. Ford advertised features like a single-disc CD player, fog lights, optional four-wheel ABS, optional keyless entry, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel. The 16-inch alloy wheels that came with the Kona edition were an inch larger than the aluminum wheels on the standard car. As for the bike, the Kona Blast was color-matched to the Focus and came equipped with a long-travel fork, Shimano gears, and dual disc brakes.
Ford sold just 5,000 of these for just a single year to buyers who both wanted a Focus and the latest Kona bike. Perhaps an amusing event attached to the Kona Mountain Bike Edition is that the car got a recall for something that had nothing to do with the car itself. As Automotive News reported in 2000, the limited edition car was recalled because Kona had to replace a possible defective crank bolt on the bike. To carry out the recall, owners of the vehicle (of which about 800 were sold at the time) were advised to visit a Kona shop. But for the cars that hadn’t been delivered or sold yet? They were repaired on the Ford dealership lots. Automotive News remarked on the amusing oddity of bicycles getting fixed at a car dealership. Perhaps it will be no surprise that I couldn’t find any of these currently for sale. I found old ads, but nothing fresh. I’ve noticed that rare versions of common cars sometimes end up ragged out and destroyed with the rest of them. If you somehow have one, is it worth anything? I can’t say, even the concept car sold for a paltry $8,250. But if you’re a lover of first-gen Focus, it seems like a good addition to the collection. [Correction: A source for this story noted the Focus target demographic as Millennial, but the birth year range really matched Generation X. Thank you kind readers!]
For Just Two Years You Could Buy A Practical Mazda Sedan That Hit 60 MPH In Under 6 Seconds: Holy Grails Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines He’s David Tracy Buying A ‘Holy Grail’ 1987 Jeep Truck That Never Existed Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member. The Holy Grail Of Smart Cars Is This Street-Legal Concept Car And It’s For Sale Right Now When the car was released in 2000, Millennials were aged 4-19, so only a fraction of the demographic were even old enough to drive, let alone afford a car that came with a fancy bike. If anything, they were going after Gen-X who, at the time, were ranging in age from “just entering the workforce and getting their first big-boy paychecks” to “mid-30s and approaching a mid-life crisis, wanting to prove to themselves and their friends that they were still youthful and fun”. I suppose I’m just overly sensitive to the term “millennials” being thrown about because, as a member of that cohort, I have heard it thrown around pretty haphazardly over at least two decades… usually in a disparaging manner. No, I’m not on my 3rd mortgage, a 15 year career, have 4 kids, and am old enough to get nostalgic about cars from the late naughts. And I was born in 1990. Keep up the good work Mercedes! We didn’t get the 4-door hatchback ZX5 until 2002, but that would’ve been a good fit for the Kona, with the 4 doors but not as big as the wagon. https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/products/2019/04/18/mercedes_amp_research_carbon_fork_1555576899_e76cee01.jpg I always liked all the special editions Ford offered on the Focus early on, especially the Sony edition. I saw on some carspotting Instagram, someone had found a Kona Focus that was starting to sink back into the earth despite looking savable. “Mountain Bikes” were huge at that time as the more adult version of the inline skates of the early ’90s. I owned a fully modded 00 ZX3 and then an 04 SVT and severely regret getting the SVT over an 05 ST just to get that sweet 2.3. This bike was about as high-end as the car. I guess a good fit(?), but not exactly a stellar product. Konas were early to the aluminum frame with longer-ish travel forks and disc brake game, but this was an entry-level model or close to it. Finally, isn’t that James Franco in the “youth” ad? Whoever it is seems to be wearing a bike chain bracelet, too. I may or may not have had a similar one around that time… I remember the owner hated the bikes clogging up the sales storage area/lunch room so they got blown out for $100 over invoice.
