be a year that manufacturers and the car industry in Ireland wish to put firmly behind them, the shift towards new cars – should it happen next year to any small degree – will be towards cars like these, writes PADDY COMYN
With the migration towards diesel technology a relatively new thing in Ireland, there is a huge demand for clean, diesel engines in compact family cars and, in a broader sense, as manufacturers are pushed to make CO2 emissions lower, we are seeing larger cars producing emissions levels that a supermini wouldn’t have managed just three years ago.
Both the Focus and the Golf have been two of the major forces in our own market in the compact family car segment.
Both look good, are well built and reasonably affordable so, for many people in the market to buy, they make the transition to a new car that bit easier.
These are new models, too, but neither has seen a revolutionary change. The Golf is a whole new car, but the changes from its last incarnation aren’t all that dramatic. Volkswagen gave its engineers the brief of making this car cheaper to build, but also cleaner and more modern, and they have done just that.
It’s an evolution, but one that works, while the same is true of the Focus. We can expect to see a radical change to the Focus some time in the future if Ford is true to form but this isn’t it.
The design has got closer to Mondeo but underneath, the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” has never been more apt. This is a tweak to the excellent 2004 model and it still looks and drives as well as ever.
There were seldom two cars that are as closely matched as the ones you see here. So which will be the family favourite in 2010?
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