Review: 2001 Ford Focus ZX3 -- an inexpensive first car with a personality

My first car may not be in perfect condition, but much of the design excellence that set this Ford Focus apart from other 
2001-model economy cars continues to be evident years later.

As soon as I had driven home today in my first car – a car with my name on the title, not just a minivan I’m allowed to use – and started to share the news, one of the first comments was that this car seemed out of character for me. 

“I didn't know you had it in you to buy a car with a personality,” was this compliment.

I need to clarify this point: the 2001 Ford Focus ZX3 I brought home today does indeed have a personality in the car enthusiast sense. It handles well, it looks sharp, and it came fully-loaded, and the reduced practicality of having just two doors serves to add character.

But this personality was just another accessory on the car, like its moonroof, that I wasn’t out looking for and didn’t especially want. I’m a boring, practical person. A base-model car with hubcaps instead of alloy wheels and crank windows instead of power would have suited me just fine. Less stuff to go wrong that way.

But when you’re shopping on a budget as tight as $3,500, you just have to compromise. So my first car has a personality. 

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For years, my family had one computer for three full-time computer users. We got by just fine, of course, but once we moved on to one per person we never looked back. 

We never had to see what it would have been like to have fewer licensed drivers than cars throughout an entire summer, with three cars for four people each with busy schedules. I’m sure we would have managed – many people do – but I’m sure all of us will appreciate the extra flexibility. 

This extra flexibility isn’t cheap, of course. My parents provided the $3,500 budget for me to track down a nice student-mobile: something that would get me where I wanted to go without demanding significant cash infusions for that service.

Weeks of internet searches produced a wide variety of cheap little cars littered around the Washington area – the newer the better, as they would have more of their life left in them. These searches eventually led me to a Craigslist ad for an eight-year-old Ford hatchback at a small dealership in Falls Church, Va.

The car looks great from far away. From far away you see the gleaming paint but not the dings in the driver’s door or the scrapes on the bumpers and outside mirror. Something seemed off to me – even with a couple of dings and a manual transmission that few drivers know how to operate, this car seemed a bit too nice for its $3,400 asking price, even with close to 100,000 miles.

It was therefore almost a relief to see that some aspects of the car’s interior had not aged so well. It suggested that the discounted price might be explained by cosmetic issues with the car rather than mechanical defects. 

The center armrest is broken. The cargo cover is missing. The dash is discolored where a previous owner had glued something down. There are some stains on the seats. The factory-installed stereo is gone, replaced by one without an identifiable “off” button. (One button I pushed made the unit fall out of the dash and into a cupholder, which I suppose accomplishes the same task as a traditional “off” button, though less gracefully.) The button to open the back hatch doesn’t work.

This is why – I hope – the car was in my price range and why the dealership was willing to drop another $200 off the listed price. There are worse problems for a cheap car to have. The one-year powertrain warranty included by the dealer – Ammoury Auto – also proved very reassuring when buying something this inexpensive.

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But despite a decidedly junky feel sitting inside – though at least the seats are unripped and mostly wear-free – the design that set the Focus apart from its contemporaries when it was new has survived the pounding this car has endured over the last 96,000 miles.

It still has a high seating position with lots of space and excellent forward visibility for an older economy car and a smooth yet tight ride that made the car feel substantial as it made its way around the Beltway today. It still has the excellent handling that helps give it its personality, though the steering may have once been tighter and the shifter may have moved more slickly a few dozen thousand miles ago. 

When a car enthusiast talks about a car having a personality, that person specifically means an interesting car. But I would say my new old Focus has a more important personality than being good-looking and less practical than it might have been.

It’s comfortable on the highway. Its hatchback body style makes it practical. It will hopefully get good gas mileage and last a while. That’s the personality I was really looking for in my first car, a nice pleasant personality, or the closest equivalent under $3,500.

But as long as the rest of that personality was thrown in at the same price, I guess I’ll just have to get used to it. No car is perfect, after all.