End of year figures for 2012 released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) show that, for the eleventh time in its fourteen-year production run, the Ford Focus was the best-selling car in Ireland racking up an impressive 3,738 sales - more than either Audi or BMW managed across their entire ranges.
While data is still being collated it seems likely the Focus will also take the best-selling car in the world with figures released in September showing 737,856 examples had been sold to that point. The Focus has been an undoubted success for Ford, so much so that the current generation is the brand's first so-called 'Global Car' - the same model sold in Europe, America, Asia and Timbuktu.
You do have to wonder if the Escort replacement would have been as successful if it bore a pretentious name such as Ikon, as it very nearly did.
The story of the naming of the Focus comes to us via Motor Trend and goes a little something like this:
On the eve of the 1998 Geneva Motor Show, 500 of the finest motoring writers the world knows crowded into the Espace Secheron for the Ford press conference before the unveiling of the model that was to succeed the iconic Ford Escort. Much was known about the car as various leaks and spy shots had revealed the radical looks, but nobody knew what nameplate the new model would wear.
The smart money was on 'Fusion' after leaks from within the Blue Oval pointed to it leading the running ahead of Ikon and Focus, but Ford boss Jac Nasser, incensed by the leak, was remaining tight lipped about the name - not only to curious media but also his own PR team. Even when the new car was being photographed for its glamorous press-kit shots Nasser insisted on no badges or vanity plates.
Ford's PR team was accustomed to handling motor show crises (damaged show cars and one-off prototypes that refuse to play ball are not unheard of), but never before had they arrived at a show not knowing the name of their centrepiece. A contingency plan was put into place that involved five photocopiers being installed backstage and even more back at Ford's hotel room to first print off the 500 required press packs for journalists at the preview event and a further 5,000 (in five different languages) for distribution at the show proper. Computers were readied with press releases full of key technical and design details, with just the name to be inserted once Jac Nasser announced it.
The golden moment finally came when appetisers were served ahead of the press conference when Nasser beckoned a senior PR officer to him, mouthed "It's Focus" out of the corner of his mouth before returning to his canapé. And a (sales) legend was born...