The last Ford Focus will roll down the production line in Germany in November 2025, bringing an end to a model that was once hugely important to the Blue Oval.
As reported by European outlets including Motor1, Ford’s European division finally confirmed an end date for the Focus in an email to media, having earlier put 2025 down as a blanket date for the end of production.
Since launching in 1998, more than 12 million examples of the Ford Focus have been sold globally, including market-specific versions.
This included almost 206,000 sales in Australia, which began when the Focus arrived on local shores in 2002, replacing the Mazda 323-based Laser.
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Current Ford Focus
Sales of the Focus in Australia peaked in 2013 when 19,180 examples were delivered, however its popularity quickly declined, dropping to 7112 sales in 2015 and finally disappearing with a fizzle of 39 sales in 2023, a year after its local discontinuation.
At the time the Focus was taken off sale locally, it was only available in performance ST guise, with more affordable variants progressively culled in the years prior.
According to Motor1, order books for the Focus in Europe are still open for the foreseeable future, even though its Saarlouis factory – which previously made more than six million Escorts – is set to shut up shop by year’s end.
The demise of the Focus in Europe leaves Ford with just one traditional passenger vehicle in the market, the Mustang sports car. Outside of this, it sells SUVs, vans and utes – not dissimilar to its Australian lineup.
However, two of its electric SUVs – the Capri and Explorer – are reskinned Volkswagens.
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2002 Ford Focus
While the Focus – which was most commonly available as a hatchback but also previously as a wagon, sedan and even convertible – was a part of the shrinking small car segment, rivals such as the Volkswagen Golf have recently seen a renaissance in Europe.
Last year, 215,715 examples of Volkswagen’s long-serving Golf were sold on the continent, a significant increase of 17 per cent.
In Australia, the disappearance of the Focus is largely reflected in the size of the segment it occupied.
Back in 2002, 20 per cent of all new vehicles sold were small passenger cars, headed by the Toyota Corolla, Holden Astra and Mitsubishi Lancer.
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2011 Ford Focus
In 2013 when Focus sales peaked locally, small cars represented 23 per cent of the market. When the last examples of the Focus rolled out of showrooms in 2023, small cars accounted for just under seven per cent of total vehicle deliveries.
Despite losing all of its passenger vehicles except the Mustang in Australia, last year Ford posted its first annual sales total of more than 100,000 vehicles since 2008, when the Falcon and Focus were its best-sellers.
This sales success is largely attributed to the Ranger ute, which last year represented 62.5 per cent of all Fords sold.
Combined with the related Everest SUV, the two Australian-developed, Thai-built vehicles accounted for almost 90 per cent of the brand’s deliveries.
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