2013 Dodge Dart Rallye vs. 2012 Ford Focus SE

2013 Dodge Dart Rallye vs. 2012 Ford Focus SE 2013 Dodge Dart Rallye vs. 2012 Ford Focus SE
Comparison Tests

It was during his hair-earmuff period, circa 1980, that soft-rock belter Neil Diamond, in his paean to immigration, America, growled:

Freedom’s light burning warm!

Oh, actually forget that. That’s just our favorite part but not, strictly speaking, pertinent in any way to the 2013 Dodge Dart and 2012 Ford Focus. (A ’13 Focus was unavailable.) It was more that whole—

They’re coming to America

Today!

That’s the part where ol’ spangled-shirt Diamond has something meaningful to say about the state of the compact-sedan market in the United States. Each such entrant from what we now call the Domestic Three (Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors) has its roots elsewhere in the world. GM’s entrant in the class, the Chevrolet Cruze, has already made it big in America. Sadly, though, it also lost to the Focus in an earlier comparison test, so it was not invited back for this round.

Bottom left: the center stack button array once turned into a talking robot head. Sadly, it didn't know how to operate the sync system, either. Bottom right: the Dodge's shift knob is uncommonly large.

The impetus for this head-to-head matchup is instead the introduction of the Dodge Dart, the progeny of an arranged Italian-American marriage. Somewhat of a replacement for the regrettable Caliber, the curvy, sedan-only Dart rides on a lengthened and widened version of  the Alfa Romeo platform that underpins the Giulietta in Europe. Assembled in Belvidere, Illinois, and powered here by a rorty little 1.4-liter turbo four bolted together in Dundee, Michigan, it’s perhaps best to think of the Dart as meat and potatoes, with a dash of oregano.

The Focus has similarly complicated lineage. The first Focus, an edgy Euro cousin, arrived on our shores near the end of the American Century and promptly assimilated, becoming less compelling as the years passed. It took a reintroduction of  European bloodlines to pique our interest again. And this new Focus has collected a 10Best trophy and two comparison-test wins (against a raft of new C-segment competitors). We again chose a sedan Focus for its newest challenge, a notchback being the only Dart body style offered. We’re pleased to say we finally get to put a Focus with a manual transmission into a comparo, as our chosen Dart, a Rallye model with the turbo four, was available only with a six-speed manual at the time of the test (a dual-clutch automatic comes later).

Both the Dart Rallye and the Focus SE start below $20,000, and our examples pushed into the low 20s. Each pumps out 160 peak horsepower, carries 13 cubic feet of cargo, circles the skidpad at 0.86 g, and negotiates our slalom at 42.2 mph. Generally speaking, these two are a perfect match.

With our imported British photographer in tow, we headed to Ohio, where this slight young man was continually shocked at the size of the American human and the propensity of the males of the species to wear unkempt beards. We didn’t choose Ohio for its interminable, flat expressways, although we made ample use of those. Instead, we headed for our own little “Hockingheim ring” of snaky public roads in the southern Ohio Hocking Hills.  A stretch, you say? Yeah, well would you believe that the real Hockenheim ring hosts an annual NitrOlympX event with Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars wearing pink ’59 Cadillac–style bodies running the quarter-mile? It’s true. We’re talking some heavy cross-cultural stuff here. Let us begin.