1st Ford focus Mk1 family hatch has beaten some stiff contenders to top prize – and it’s a really deserving winner.
Your votes have been counted and verified, and now it’s official: the unassuming first-generation Ford focus has beaten a hot hatch with world rally championship-winning pedigree and the world’s greatest supercar to the top prize – you voted it the best car of the past 25 years. That may shock some of you, but for us there’s no much more deserving winner. Our trip down memory lane with the focus wasn’t sepia-toned – as it still feels like a well built, sharp-handling hatch 15 years after launch. It’s easy to see why it set the bar so high, and rather than getting old that styling keeps getting better.
Advertisement – short article continues below

2nd Lancia Delta Integrale
There had to be an Italian car at the sharp end of our poll, but among the Ferraris, Alfas, Lambos and Maseratis, who’d have thought it’d be a Lancia? and a hatchback, to boot? but this is no ordinary hatch…The Delta Integrale took on all-comers in the WRC and won, so it’s no surprise that the road model is fantastic to drive. but the real bonus offer is that the Lancia we drove feels fast, agile and fantastically dramatic in a way few of today’s cars can match.