At the Turin Motor Show in 1992 Ford brought a type car roadster which was considered by many to be a true work of art on four wheels. He was called Ghia Focus, in honor of the famous coachbuilder and in view of a commitment of the second name in the future. The car that Ford then put on sale, the 1998 Focus, had nothing to do with that Turin concept.
The dynamically designed two-seater concept was created on the basis of the Escort RS Cosworth 4WD. The car, very compact (only 4,135 meters), had a body made of fiberglass panels and it weighed only 950 pounds. The cockpit featured large wraparound seats in saddle leather and leather. The steering wheel was made of wood, a tribute to the automobile’s past. The design was something unique, with a couple of small air intakes in the center of the bonnet, clear body-colored splitters at the front, a curvy side footprint and definitely not classifiable front and rear headlights.
The project, which began in mid-1991, had engaged four creative groups capable of elaborating various alternative proposals, and certainly it would have been nice to see the other drafts, given that seven were produced. However, the goal of creating a young “sports car” was fully achieved. It seems that Giorgetto Giugiaro, seeing her, said: “This is not a car, it is a work of art“. That was probably why it wasn’t put into production. Although, it must be admitted, such a design could have anticipated certain stylistic innovations by several years. The only example of the car, that of the salon, was sold in 2002 for a million dollars.
The engine it would have mounted, if it had arrived on the assembly line, would have been a two-liter turbo, capable of delivering 227 horsepower and 300 Nm of torque. The three-spoke wheels, with a three-oval design, were chosen from 18 inches. The body design was done by Taru Lahti, and he was given the task of finding something that was as sporty as a Corvette or a Cobra, but in a different way. “It was easy”, the designer certainly thinks at the time. So it was that he decided to take inspiration from human anatomy, creating a car with even asymmetrical shapes.
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