The New Ford Focus In Knysna…

Its official!

The all-new Ford Focus made its South African debut!

And I got to drive it! Or should I say, I got to drive THEM!

I love driving. I love being in my car. I was so stoked when I was invited to attend the Ford Focus launch! I spent 24 hours gallivanting with the folks from Ford and a bunch of journos down in Knysna and we spent the night in Knysna’s magnificent Turbine Hotel and Spa! We flew down on Thursday afternoon, arriving in a very warm George at about 2:30PM. I got to see @denphat and @MsLeloB again (we did the Figo Rally together), and I got to meet some new people! @DomBrownSA from Essentials magazine was my partner for the adventure (and I think she may have been very grateful for some peace and quiet after sharing a car with me  ). I met Nikki- @liveeco_za- from LiveEco, @AshlinSimpson from Shape as well as journos from Cleo and FHM, to name but a few. I really should have made a list of everyone’s names…

The Ford crew met us at the airport and after a quick brief on the dos-and-don’ts and us splitting ourselves into teams of two, we signed our indemnity forms and were sent downstairs to find the cars waiting for us! There was a gawjiss “mustard olive” coloured hatch at the front of the line and me being such a sucker for something pretty I wanted to drive that one first, but I didn’t call dibs fast enough.

Dom and I set off for Knysna (with a seriously detailed book of directions) in a “Blazer Blue” 2L TDCi Trend automatic. After about 30km we switched and I drove it into Knysna and I tell you bunnies, the gear changes are seamless, almost imperceptible, and there’s no lag when you pull away from a stop street or traffic light! And the power under my right foot made it VERY hard to stick to the speed limit.

After some chill time in our hotel we went into a presentation from Ford to detail the plan behind marketing the car and explaining Ford Focus’s Drive Quality, Drive Green, Drive Safe and Drive Smart. Then it was time for some fun and games. In the one computer game we had to drive a car on a rally track and try to clock the fastest time (without any practising) and I was very impressed with my time of 2 minutes 52 seconds, especially since the world record is 2 minutes 37 seconds! You sit in a bucket seat with brake and accelerator pedals, and the steering wheel has paddle shifts for gearing up and down and I didn’t crash once! We also played a Wii Ski game, and scored points for our fuel consumption from earlier (Dom and I managed 5.4L per 100km from George airport to Knysna). And we were challenged to photograph just one of the features on the new Focus! The side mirrors that fold in automatically when you turn the car off; the auto-dimming rear-view mirror; a fully adjustable steering wheel; fully adjustable seats; heated seats (in the sport); auxilliary and USB ports; voice activation for phone, radio and air-con (or just the phone in some models); the 3 second hill-launch assist; rain-activated windscreen wipers; the list goes on and on!

Then it was dinner time. Wow! The Island Cafe in the Turbine Hotel is awesome! There are pictures of my food in the gallery below…

On Friday we breakfasted at the hotel- with a few rather sensitive heads after Thursday night’s partying- and then set off for Oudtshoorn (in different cars to the ones we’d driven the day before). Dom and I were in stitches over the totally porno “BJ69…GP” registration number on the 2L petrol 4 door automatic sedan we were allocated that morning! Again we were given detailed directions in booklets and switched drivers at a set distance. Oh, and you have got to see the picture I have attached below to demonstrate the boot space!! We ended the first leg at Red Berry Farm where we had to collect a punnet of strawberries each, and then we traded cars again. This time we got to drive the 2L manual 5 door “Mustard Olive” hatch that I had so wanted to drive the day before! The handling on the hatch as we wound our way through the Outeniqua Pass was fargin-fantastic! I could feel it hunker down into a bend and again I had a really hard time sticking to the speed limit… We switched drivers again and Dom took us into Oudtshoorn and we made our way to the Chandelier Game Lodge and Ostrich Show Farm for lunch. We not only ate ostrich pie, we also watched an ostrich race, watched some journos and the Ford crew spitting ostrich dung balls (for distance) and learned a bit about ostriches.

If you want to, you can click here and listen to me talking about the 2L manual hatch- I make voice recordings on my phone because I can’t Tweet and drive!

Then we changed cars again and Dom took us on the first leg of our trip to the airport in the 1.6L manual 5 door hatch. When we reached a pizza restaurant in the middle of the Klein Karoo we switched drivers again and I got to take this hatch through the Outeniqua Pass’s twists and turns as well. It was fabulous.

Our journey ended at the George airport where we checked in and relaxed a little before we flew back to a cool Joburg.

And now for the photos (click to enlarge).

Thank you so much Ben, Kesh, Rella, Tracy, Lloyd, and the rest of the crew from Ford, for a funtastic experience! You guys went all out to make it fun and informative!

Check out Jucy Africa‘s post!

…come play on my roller coaster…

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