by David Finlay (28 Feb 06)

There have been other cars with solid yet foldable roofs, but the launch of the Focus Coupé-Cabriolet at the Geneva Show is as good an indication as any that such vehicles have become part of the motoring mainstream. The Focus is the production version of the Vignale concept which was displayed at the Paris Show in 2004, and Ford says that the positive reaction it received provided the incentive to bring that car - or something as close as practicably possible to it - to market, though with the introduction of rival models such as the Volkswagen Eos (see feature) it would have seemed strange if Ford had failed to provide buyers with an alternative.

Ford is, of course, an international company. UK customers tend to think of it as British, but the company's European base is in Germany, it builds cars in many countries including Spain, Belgium and Russia, and the global centre of operations is in the US. Adding to this cosmopolitan mix, the Focus Coupé-Cabriolet is largely Italian. The familiar mechanical bits are mostly created at Saarlouis in Germany, but the design is largely the work of Pininfarina, and production will take place at Pininfarina's Grugliasco and Bairo factories in Italy.

The marketeers talk of "a distinctly Italian design flavour" in the profile and rear view, and certainly the back end of the Coupé-Cabriolet bears little resemblance to any other production Ford. From the windscreen forwards, though, this is visually a standard Focus, and Pininfarina deserves a lot of credit for designing a brand new rear which merges so successfully with an existing front.

Comparisons with the Eos are inevitable. The Volkswagen has a much cleverer top - it's made up of five sections and includes a sliding glass sunroof. The simpler, and no doubt much cheaper, Ford arrangement involves merely a two-piece roof. Following current trends, putting the roof up or down involves nothing more energetic than pressing a button, and during open-top motoring the roof is stored in the luggage compartment.

And here's something which may prove to be one of the Coupé-Cabriolet's biggest selling points: in coupé mode, Ford says that the luggage compartment has a volume of over 500 litres. Some of this, obviously, will be taken up by the roof when the car turns into a cabriolet, but that should still leave a very useful amount of storage space. For reference, the Eos offers a relatively modest 380 litres with the roof up. Like Volkswagen, though, Ford promises that its new car will have enough room for four passengers.

Engine choice is limited compared with the Eos. Volkswagen offers five choices, Ford just three - 99bhp 1.6-litre and 143bhp two-litre petrol units and the 134bhp TDCi turbo diesel. There's no official word yet of anything more dramatic, so the Coupé-Cabriolet has no obvious answer to the 198bhp 2.0 Turbo and 247bhp 3.2 V6 versions of the Eos, but it must surely be at least technically possible for Ford to use the 2.5-litre five-cylinder turbo engine brought in from Volvo to power the high-performance Focus ST (see launch report). The company's accountants will surely be keeping an eye on that possibility.

The Focus Coupé-Cabriolet will go on sale later this year. More technical details and a UK pricing structure will be announced nearer the time.

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