Ford Special Vehicle Team, Limited-Edition, SVT Focus 3-Door #1337 of a build of 3985. Assembled 04/24/03.
2003 Ford Focus SVT
Ford Special Vehicle Team, Limited-Edition, SVT Focus 3-Door #1337 of a build of 3985. Assembled 04/24/03.
In October of 2003 I bought a car. I had ridden my motorcycles pretty much non-stop, year round for the last two years. Only on the most miserable of days would I break out my old van and take it to work. As the cold fall rain set into western Oregon I wanted a change. I felt like driving a warm, dry, reliable vehicle to work through the winter. My old van was dry, started to get warm by the time I got to the office and not very reliable. It was time to drop lots of money into the van and bring it back to life, or trade it in for something new. Its always more fun to get new stuff, so I went shopping.
I had my heart set on a new car. I've bought other people's problems in the past, and just didn't feel like replacing one liability with another. I wanted a smaller car. I started looking real fast stuff, WRX STI's and EVO Lancers. More money and more car than I need to drive back and forth to work. I found nothing wrong with the standard WRX, but it just didn't do it for me. I had several GTI's and Scirocco's in the 80's and looked seriously at the current VR6 GTI. I've never had Ford. I'd seen several SVT Focus' on the road and never paid much attention to them. I stumbled into the local Ford store one day after work to take a look. They had a black one with the HID headlights and the good tunes. I took it for a drive and really liked it. It's a pretty big small car, lots of front seat and head room. I didn't feel confined. The six speed Getrag gear box is sweet. The engine has some pull to it, but not enough for the torque steer to drive you nuts. The long gearing and adequate midrange make it pleasant to drive around town. Bring up the Revs, and its quite a bit of fun. Still, the Focus just wasn't that exciting.
The Focus was the least expensive and subsequently "most practical" of the cars I looked at. I went to the internet to learn more about it. I fell in love with the SVT European Package. It has the Leather Recaro Seats, Grey 15 spoke Argent wheels, and automatically comes with the HID lights, Loud 6 CD in Dash tunes, and all the other SVT bits. Further time on the internet revealed three 2003 SVT's with the European Package left within a 125 mile radius of my home. A black one in Eugene, a Competition Orange one in Portland and a Silver one in a little town called Sandy on the way to Mt. Hood. I took a short motorcycle ride to Eugene and sat in the Black one. The Recaro seats were even better in person than they looked on the internet. I was sold. I've had black cars before, and vowed to never get another. I worked the price for a data point and called it a day.
I joked with my wife that I was going to get the Orange one. I'm an Oregon State University Alumni and big OSU Beaver Sports Fan. OSU's colors are Black and Orange. I told her how cute we would look tailgating with our bright orange focus adorned with black and orange flags. In reality, I liked the Silver one. Over the phone, the dealer in Sandy beat the Eugene Store's price. The following Sunday the Orange one was advertised in the newspaper for couple hundred dollars less than the over the phone price I got on the silver one. I clipped the ad, printed the trade in blue book for the old van and my wife and I went to Sandy to buy a car. Suburban Ford was very quick and professional. We managed to get blue book trade in for the van and they met the ad price for the Silver SVT. $5000 off MSRP. I left a happy customer.
Issues: Only two so far. The high idle upon start up is annoying. Its been to the dealer twice for a hesitation around 3000rpm that occurs before the engine is at full operating temperature. Both times the dealer has corrected it. Once it returned. The second issue is kind of silly. The removable cup-holder inserts are a clever idea. They are easy to take out for cleaning. Unfortunately, they are the same size as the large paper Pepsi cups at most fast food restaurants. Its possible for the cup holder liner to stick to the bottom of the cup. I threw my drink cup in the big dumpster at work the other day before I realized the cup holder was still attached to it.
August 2006 somebody offered me a couple dollars more for the car than I thought it was worth, so down the road it went. In November I replaced it with a pick-up
