Long gone from the U.S. and now discontinued altogether, the Ford Focus remains a popular target on the used vehicle market for many – as well as a potential future collectible, in some cases. In fact, we’ve seen a couple of nice examples surface at online auction sites in recent weeks, including a 25k-mile 2003 Focus SVT and an 11k-mile 2006 Focus SES, to name just a couple. Now, that trend continues with this 15k-mile 2003 Ford Focus ZX3 Premium, which is currently up for grabs at Bring a Trailer.
This particular Ford Focus lived much of its life in car-friendly Arizona and California, and as a result, remains in excellent condition today. There are a few scratches and some touch-up paint present on its Egg Yolk Yellow body, but nothing major, as one might expect from a 15k-mile car of any kind. It’s also in bone stock condition, which is good news for folks that tend to avoid the uncertainties associated with modified vehicles.
The same goes for the basic interior, which is equipped with Medium Graphite cloth-covered seats with patterned inserts, along with amenities such as air conditioning, cruise control, manual crank windows, a front-row center armrest with a storage compartment, and a Ford-Blaupunkt CD stereo, though a previous owner did add an aftermarket alarm system.
Power for this 2003 Ford Focus comes from the automaker’s 2.0L I-4 Zetec engine, which was originally rated to send 130 horsepower and 135 pound-feet of torque to the front wheels via a four-speed automatic transmission. In fantastic condition and with all of its original manufacturer’s literature, there’s certainly a lot to like about this ultra-bright, fun little hatchback, though we’d love to see a manual gearbox in place rather than the old slush box it’s equipped with, which would help up the fun quotient, anyway.
We’ll have more cool auction finds like this to share soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for more Ford Focus news and continuous Ford news coverage.
Comments
Had one of these; purchased new in 2002. Relatively fun to drive (when it wasn’t at the dealer for some reason), but not much else going for it. Build quality was abysmal. Put 17K miles on it and traded it because it was simply too unreliable.
Emanon: Isn’t it strange how one person’s experience can be so different from another’s? In 2003 I special ordered a fully loaded sedan. It had every option you could order at that time and the dealer told me it was the most expensive Focus they ever sold. It was a great car. At that time, the wife and I would drive from northern IL to Florida to visit my parents in the winter. In 2001 we drove my 2000 Lincoln LS V8 Sport and it was not pleasant. In fact it was so uncomfortable for the long drives that we tried to trade it off when in Florida. The next year we had the brand new Focus and we both enjoyed the drive down and back with zero complaints. It was a great little car. Then years later I picked up a very well used but clean (2006 or 2007) Focus sedan just to drive back and forth to work. When I purchased it, the car had well over 150K. It wasn’t as fancy as the new one we had in 2003, but it was also a terrific car.