 I owned a Ford Focus in 2002 and wasn't that fond of the car.  Since then I had all types of performance cars - Nissan 350z, Mustang GT and Charger R/T.  I recently traded in the Charger for the Focus SES 4-door and am pleasantly surprised with the engineering.  Ford has come a long way with their quality and "WOW factor."  We looked at several Japaneses and Korean compacts for fuel efficiency and none compare