It's slow. This is 1970's gas-crunch slow. This is rental car slow. This is YouTube on hotel-internet slow. This is 9 am mall-walking slow. This is "You've reached 50mph and you're not passing anyone on the highway" slow. Sure, there's a turbo but the 1.0 Ecoboost 3-cyl is no ST. Hell, it's slower than the naturally aspirated base model Focus.

The turbo isn't noticeable. I don't know where it "comes on." Maybe the turbo is spinning as soon as 1,000rpm, maybe it doesn't spool until 4,000. I kicked the tach needle from end-to-end with no tangible change in power or deviance in acceleration.

Big Question: Can you sell a small engine in a medium-sized car to Americans?

Big Question: Can you sell a small engine in a medium-sized car to Americans? Listen, these 1,000cc motors are nothing new in Europe-Land. I get it. The European market needs them. Your fuel is twelve-rods to the Hog's head or whatever. Your fuel is more expensive than craft beer in Boulder, Colorado. Your trains look like lady-toys and are more on-time than healthcare bills. So, what's high fuel costs and micro-engines to you?

We Americans had a 3-cylinder in the past—it was the Euro-Transplant Geo Metro in the 90's. That was an N/A motor and it was so slow, it bore the brunt of car jokes from non-car people. The Geo Metro was the Meg Griffin of cars. It was the bottom-sucker PT Cruiser before the PT Cruiser.

So, how can Ford, make this 1.0L turbo marketable to Americans? See, the 1.0L turbo is priced between the base model 4-cyl Focus and the glam-rocked, fluffed-up Focus Titanium Edition. That means, buyers have to want the 1.0L turbo. Buyers must be determined to weather the high price point. Casuals will just buy the base model with the larger engine.

Ford's 3-cyl 1.0L makes 123 horsepower with direct injection—wait, hold on. I know that sounds acceptable but that power only comes on at a hidden RPM. I banged that tach needle from pin to pin and couldn't find 123 horsepower. Ford assures me that it is there, but where? It's a secret! Never teach the WuTang!

In everyday driving, the Focus 1.0 Turbo makes 9.5 horsepower and -2.2 lb-ft of torque. It has a 6 speed manual transmission and boy-howdy will you be stirring that thing. You'll race the Escort ZX2 next to you at every light, and the ZX2 won't even know it was in a street race.

The best mileage the owner ever got was 51mpg over a long day of highway driving from Dearborn, MI to Reading, PA. The worst mileage the owner ever recorded was 30mpg of just city driving. On average, the owner says he gets between 40-45mpg.

Brakes! If you remember nothing else from what you're reading here, remember this:

Any Ford Focus 1.0L Turbo hatchback can be had with four wheel disc brakes if you ask for them. The owner got this car from a dealership which is the automotive equivalent of ordering off-the-menu.

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The salesman told the owner that the base model 1.0L Focus wasn't available with rear discs. The owner, in a very 1960's move, said "I want them, and I'll pay for them."

To cover his ass, the salesman said: "I'll see what I can do but, the car may still arrive with rear drums."

Wouldn't you know it, a few months later a 1.0L Turbo Focus arrived with rear disc brakes from Ford! Customers can still get what they want!

And "getting what you want" is the key to this slow, slow—cheese-digestion slow—slower than a Midwest accent car. See, everything about the Focus is enjoyable, even the alien electric power steering. You can shift the 6-speed abusively-fast—you can shift it harder than a teenager in an EX Civic Hatch trying to race a Corvette C5. The Focus, lightened with the smaller engine block, clamps down with four-wheel discs, and stops like an Evo. Even the base seats have good bolstering. It's just the engine that is the weak point.

However, the weak point is the point. This is a car for the hypermiling nerd; a statistics major with a quarter tank of gas and seven days to payday. This is the car for the twitching Dr. Alphys in all of us who obsesses over the most minor of details.

If you like to be involved in your gas saving, and want a car that will beat a Toyota Prius in mileage without the safe-space-seeking, Tumblr-posting, recreational outrage, social-justice warrior-ing, "I regret to inform you" Prius image —and you don't want to give up manual transmission, and retain a modicum of street-cred—the 2015 Ford Focus 1.0L 3-Cyl Turbo is the car for you.

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