Ford Focus ST: Get yer trousers on

Ford Focus ST - filming in The Sweeney

The Ford Focus ST is to be up front in the the new film of the 1970s TV show The Sweeney. Starring Ray Winstone, The Sweeney will arrive in 2012.

We had the arrival of the production version of the Ford Focus ST at the Frankfurt show in September, and it is due to arrive in 2012 – as is a film version of the iconic 1970s TV show about the Met’s Flying Squad – The Sweeney.

The Sweeney – for those not old enough to remember – was a 1970s police TV drama starring the late John Thaw and Dennis Waterman as Reagan and Carter – real-life Life on Mars cops; hard-drinking, chain smoking and with a complete disregard for the rules.

The Sweeney featured Ford cars front and centre, with DI Reagan driven around in a Ford Consul GT and sidekick Carter foisted in to a Cortina when Reagan sent him off on his own.

The Sweeney was also single-handedly responsible for destroying more MK II Jags than rust, thanks to the Sweeney’s predilection for car chases with the baddies in a Jag, which always managed to crash.

And just like the ’70s Sweeney, the Sweeney movie for 2012 will also get Ford cars as the headline act, with DI Reagan – played by Ray Winstone – driving the new Focus ST, all the better to collar the baddies.

It won’t just be the Focus ST on show either on the Sweeney, with the Ford Transit making an appearance as a great vehicle to use in a blag, the Mondeo as a replacement for the Cortina for when Sergeant George Carter goes off on his own, and a Galaxy or three for transporting roaming packs of plod.

We hear The Sweeney film crew have been down on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent filming with the Focus ST, which is presumably doubling for London’s East End now London’s East End is full of Olympic site builders.

The Focus ST goes on sale in 2012.