Ford Focus ST: The Sweeney Premiere

With the Focus ST about to hit the road, Ford’s new hot Focus is front and centre in the premier of The Sweeney movie tonight.

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For readers past the first flush of youth, the cars of Ford and The Sweeney are inextricably linked in memory. From the Consul GT to the MK III Cortina and the later Granada 2.8 S, Ford and Sweeney are synonymous.

So it was a good PR move to get the new Sweeney film packed full of Ford’s cars, and what better way to go than the new Focus ST?

We caught the film crew from The Sweeney filming on the Isle of Sheppey last year and Ford managed to get the Sweeney Focus ST front and centre in a Top Gear Sweeney episode earlier this year. Since then, the Focus ST and its on-screen nemesis – the Jaguar XFR – have popped up to relive the on-screen stunts at every petrolhead event from the Goodwood Festival of Speed to Chris Evans’ CarFest.

Now comes the denouement of the year of Focus ST Sweeney PR with the premiere tonight of The Sweeney, and Ford has pitched in one last Sweeney salvo with a set of photos of the Focus ST in the film (although, as far as we know, the car used in the film wasn’t actually a real ST, but a Focus S made to look like an ST) for our delectation.

Also included in the photos Ford sent us are a couple of stock images of ‘Old’ Sweeney cars – the Granada Ghia and Cortina MK III XL. But with an editor who actually owned the original Granada Ghia and Cortina MK III GXL (and a Capri 3.0 Ghia and two Granada 2.8s – he lives in Essex and he’s very, very old) that wasn’t good enough.

So, just for the sake of nostalgia, we’ve managed to get Ford to send us a few photos of the Consul GT, perhaps the most famous of Ford’s Sweeney cars.

For younger readers, the Consul GT will just look like an old banger. But for readers with a few more years under their belts it will be a proper blast from the past, and should raise a smile of fond recollection.