As Ford Authority reported last year, production of the Ford Focus is currently slated to end at the Saarlouis Assembly plant in Germany in November 2025, even though the automaker will continue to utilize that plant with a vastly reduced workforce. Despite this, the Ford Focus remains a popular entity in Europe and the UK, and that’s particularly true in the used vehicle market. In fact, the Ford Focus ranked among the top 10 most popular used vehicles in the UK last year, too.
According to new data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the Ford Focus was the fourth best-selling used vehicle across the UK in 2024 after racking up 228,220 sales, which placed it behind only the first-place Ford Fiesta, the Vauxhall Corsa, and the Volkswagen Golf, as well as ahead of the Mini, Vauxhall Astra, BMW 3-Series, Volkswagen Polo, Nissan Qashqai, and BMW 1-Series. Like the Focus soon will be, the Fiesta has already been discontinued, though it’s possible that Ford may bring back small cars – at least in Europe – though whether or not that will actually happen remains to be seen.
As for the overall UK used vehicle market, it grew by 5.5 percent to 7,643,180 sales in 2024, marking eight consecutive quarters of growth in the meantime. For the entirety of the year, consumers scooped up 400,488 more used vehicles than they did in 2023, and sales grew each month throughout 2024 as well – closing out strong in Q4 with a four percent jump to 1,746,051 units.
“The used car sector’s 25-month growth streak is good news for fleet renewal and for consumers benefitting from the greater choice filtering through from the new market,” said Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive. “Record sales of second hand EVs also demonstrates strong appetite for these cutting-edge cars at lower price points. Ensuring ongoing growth, however, means maintaining that affordability, along with supply, which requires meaningful fiscal incentives to stimulate consumer demand for new EVs and removing the VED expensive car tax disincentive that risks dragging down used EV affordability for years to come.
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Love my 2016 ST! Too bad Ford had to discontinue both the Focus and Fiesta models. The ST’s are so much fun. Also, too bad they had to disparage the ST brand by putting it on oversized SUV’s that could never match the handling performance of the aforementioned. Oh well, I guess that’s what they call progress…Guess I’ll have to look to the Japanese or Germans when it’s time for a replacement.