Matt Prior

It’s taking awhile, like closing an ill-fitting lid on a plastic kitchen container.

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But another corner on the ‘affordable hot hatch’ tub is clicking shut, and, unlike sometimes previously, I don’t think a corner on the other side is about to pop back open again in defiance.

Which is a slightly clumsy way of avoiding the ‘nail in the coffin’ cliché. Also I think it’s vanishingly rare (I could be wrong) that a coffin lid’s opposite corner creeps open again when someone is hammering down the opposite side.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that Ford is preparing to unalive the Focus ST. Production ends in November, and it has been removed from price lists in the UK because all the remaining ones are accounted for. And this time I don’t think anyone is about to launch a new affordable petrol hot hatchback you could choose to consider instead. Although do go ahead and prove me wrong, somebody, please.

It seems like a very long time, partly because it is, since my mate Jason, when he was a young man, bought a Citroën Saxo VTR on lowor no-interest finance and got free insurance thrown in. It even feels like a long time, although it isn’t, since Hyundai offered the i20 N for under £25k.