I have always had fairly crappy cars; the kind of clapped-out relics thieves pass over in disdain.

Subsequently, driving a brand spanking new Ford Focus was a massive novelty. I felt so much better about myself. In fact, I felt slightly superior which goes some way to explaining the banker wanker Ferrari trend (see: obnoxiously prosperous).

I was lucky enough to take the Titanium Ford Focus on a road trip to visit my sisters in Bowral and Canberra. The advantage of this was that I was able to ‘open ‘er up’, as well as manoeuvre through the traffic-choked streets of Sydney. Apart from being generally quite confused about how to operate the air-conditioning, the parking pilot and the radio (I forgot my iPhone cord, otherwise I could have listened to my iPod via the port in the glovebox), I had a lot of fun hooning around.

The car handles beautifully, is powerful enough to overtake P-Platers going uphill and is generally very quiet and zippy. It’s also extremely fuel efficient so I didn’t feel ultra-guilty about driving alone (I am a car pooler from way back).

I am obviously not much of a Top Gear reviewer but what I will say is this; my brother-in-law was jealous. He ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ and sat in the driver’s seat, eyes a-gleam. He circled and inspected and compared. He looked at me with what I can only describe as respect. It was weird.

Factual stuff: Price: $32,590 – Titanium  Warranty: 3 years/100,000km Service interval: 12 months/15,000km Safety: 5-star ANCAP Engines: 1.6-litre petrol, 92kW/159Nm; 2.0-litre turbodiesel, 120kW/340Nm; 2.0-litre petrol, 125kW/202Nm Body: Four-door sedan, five-door hatch Weight: 1311-1543kg Transmission: 5-speed manual, 6-speed Powershift DSG, front-wheel drive Thirst: 5.5-7.2L/100km, 95RON/diesel, CO2 144-167g/km

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