When you have a list price of £18.5k, you have to deliver a bloody good product in that class.
Plastic door cards, wind down rear windows, manual air-con, plastic wheel trims and a £19.99 Matsui quality head unit don't add up to a vehicle costing £18.5k.
At the discounted price of circa. £14k, some of the above can be dismissed as reasonable for the price.
However, company cars are taxed on list prices, which makes the Focus hopelessly outclassed.
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Strangely enough I was having this exact conversation with my FD yesterday, as we're just ordering another Focus pool car at work. The list price is crazily high for what you get (1.6TDCi Style is what we ordered IIRC), but the monthly rental is not in line with the list price when compared to other similar cars - clearly the lease company get a nice fat discount on that £18k.
Tomorrow (today..) I get to finally have a go in the new Focus I took delivery of a few months back - a 1.6 (petrol) Style Auto, with sequential 'manaul' shift. I'm expecting great things!