SheSaid Ford Focus Blogger: Alicia

SheSaid reader Alicia might have a sentimental attachment to her car (don't we all?) so she didn't expect to love the Ford Focus she road tested for a week as much as she did!

I am a SheSaid competition winner and received a Ford Focus from Ford Australia for a week long test drive.

Let me start by saying that I have a sentimental attachment to my own car that could be described as slightly unhealthy. Being the first car I have ever bought, it’s more like a member of my family than a means of travel, only less likely to drink too much and perform Superman-esque leaps into the pool on Christmas day. As such, I never imagined I'd love the Ford Focus I was lucky enough to test drive for a week as much as I did. But I did! This car, as my Dad would say, has all the bells and whistles, and has striking good looks to match.

Firstly, it was red, not best-left-for-fire-engines red, but more a-million-rubies-in-the-sun red. I decided to show off this sleek and sexy car during a mini-break up the coast and we were utterly amazed at how much we could fit into the spacious Focus. We comfortably fit two adults, two children, luggage, and other must-haves (toys, balls, snacks) into the car and still had leg room.

My favourite thing about the Focus would have to be the fact that you don’t need to spend 15 minutes digging through old receipts, dirty tissues, mintie wrappers, and various shades of eye shadow to find the keys, while your shopping bags and/or children are rolling across the car park.

As long as the keys are in your handbag you can just touch your finger to the pad on the door to open the car, this, along with the push button start means that you never need to get your keys out again. Now that is genius. My second favourite feature is nowhere near as practical: I love the warm seats. I don’t know why it feels so amazing to have a hot butt, but it does. Don't judge me till you’ve tried it. But that seems superficial so I’m going to delve into this zippy car’s other features.

The Focus has a control that allows you to cap the speed that you travel at. This means that you can watch the road rather than the dash, strange concept. It also has the park pilot which tells you when you’re too close to those sneaky car park poles. It even parks itself into tricky parallel parking spaces, as long as you don’t mind feeling like an over-confident ghost is driving the car. Another intuitive feature of the car was its ability to sense when it’s dark or raining and automatically put on the headlights and windscreen wipers.

All the smooth, quiet driving aside, the storage compartments in this car feel like they were made for me. The sunglasses compartment actually fit my oversized sunnies, and there was a section in the centre console which fit my lip gloss perfectly. There were plenty of drink holders, including two in the middle of the back seat for those kids drink bottles that they must make lopsided, because my daughter’s is always falling over. The Bluetooth system was surprisingly easy to connect and control, and the voice quality when using my phone exceeded any I have ever experienced in a car.

The week that I had the car I only used one tank of diesel, this includes the drive to and from our beach holiday destination 3 hours away.

Would I buy it? Yes, I really would. I was honestly surprised at how luxurious and sturdy a small car can feel.