Apparently bound and determined to make this break-up as nasty as possible, Ford has delivered one last parting shot to soon-to-be former subsidiary, Volvo, in the form of the new Ford Focus X Road. Unveiled this week at the 2009 AutoRAI in Amsterdam, the Ford Focus X Road is expected to hit dealer lots in the Netherlands in mid-summer 2009 as a blatant design rip-off of the Volvo XC70. Fortunately, as Ford is wont to do, the similarities between the Focus X Road and the XC70 are largely aesthetic, and although the Focus X Road appears to be an off-road ready wagon, it’s basically just a grocery getter with a suspension lift. Dubbed a “soft roader,” the Focus X Road features the same FWD layout as the standard Focus, but the ride height has been lifted to simulate an AWD all-terrain wagon – but wait, it gets even more mundane! Catering to the biofuel-savvy crowd, Ford saw fit to engineer the Focus X Road’s 125-hp 1.8L 4-cylinder engine to run off of either standard gasoline or enviro-friendly monkey piss E85, both of which are expected to yield excellent gas mileage.
Priced at €25,175, only 300 units of the Ford Focus X Road will be produced and for the time being, Ford’s newest eyesore will remain exclusive to the Dutch market.
