Used Car of the Day: 2003 Ford Focus SVT

by Tim Healey

Published: April 19th, 2023

Today's UCOTD is a 20-year-old hot hatch.

This 2003 Ford Focus SVT comes to us from Wisconsin, with a reasonable price of $4,000.

The seller claims that aside from "minor rust in common areas but minimal", the car is in good shape.

The mileage is high -- at least 190K -- but the seller seems to have stayed on top of maintenance and replaced key components.

The tires have less than 10K miles on them, and there is a cat-back exhaust and cold-air intake to go along with Kenwood audio with Bluetooth.

We will let you click over to see all the things the seller has updated -- but before you do, remember that these cars can be pretty fun. Assuming it's in the shape the seller says it's in, you might be getting a fun car for very little money.

[Images: Seller]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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2 of 17 comments

Art Vandelay on Apr 20, 2023

The rims from these fit and look nice on a Fiesta ST

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Wjtinfwb on Apr 20, 2023

I had a '03 3dr coupe in Screaming Yellow with the EAP package, primarily outstanding black leather Recaro's. I bought it with 13k miles on it and ran it to 136k with just tires, brake pads and a couple of battery's. Not fast but adequately quick once you got the revs up with a sweet but short geared 6-speed. Living north of Atlanta, the foothills of the Smokey's were just an hour away and I made plenty of pilgrimages to the Dragon and Hwy 129 in the Focus. The handling and brakes were outstanding and on super twisty roads I could keep up with just about anything. Sure a Corvette or Boxster would pull away on the straights but I could reel them in when the road got narrow and twisty again. Never had any issues, everything worked perfectly when I sold it and frankly, I wish I still had it. But it was replaced with a leftover '16 Focus ST that I gave to my teenage son, it now has over 60k on it with just one battery and one set of new Hankook Ventus V12s. A lot of people slept on the Focus due to the Powershift transmission debacles but my experience was they were superior small cars, certainly the equal of a Civic or Mazda 3 let down by that automatic transmission and Ford's indifferent marketing and upgrading of the platform.

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Recent Comments

CaddyDaddy Start with a good vehicle (avoid anything FCA / European and most GM, they are all Junk). Buy from a private party which allows you to know the former owner. Have the vehicle checked out by a reputable mechanic. Go into the situation with the upper hand of the trade in value of the car. Have the ability to pay on the spot or at you bank immediately with cash or ability to draw on a loan. Millions of cars are out there, the one you are looking at is not a limited commodity. Dealers are a government protected monopoly that only add an unnecessary cost to those too intellectually lazy to do research for a good used car.
Redapple2 I gave up on Honda. My 09 Accord Vs my 03. The 09s- V 6 had a slight shudder when deactivating cylinders. And the 09 did not have the 03 's electro luminescent gages. And the 09 had the most uncomfortable seats. My brother bought his 3rd and last Honda CRV. Brutal seats after 25 minutes. NOW, We are forever Toyota, Lexus, Subaru people now despite HAVING ACCESS TO gm EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT. Despite having access to the gm employee discount. Man, that is a massive statement. Wow that s bad - Under no circumstances will I have that govna crap.
Redapple2 Front tag obscured. Rear tag - clear and sharp. Huh?
Redapple2 I can state what NOT to buy. HK. High theft. Insurance. Unrefined NVH. Rapidly degrading interiors. HK? No way !
Luke42 Serious answer:Now that I DD an EV, buying an EV to replace my wife’s Honda Civic is in the queue. My wife likes her Honda, she likes Apple CarPlay, and she can’t stand Elon Musk - so Tesla starts the competition with two demerit-points and Honda starts the competition with one merit-point.The Honda Prologue looked like a great candidate until Honda announced that the partnership with GM was a one-off thing and that their future EVs would be designed in-house.Now I’m more inclined toward the Blazer EV, the vehicle on which the Prologue is based. The Blazer EV and the Ultium platform won’t be orphaned by GM any time soon. But then I have to convince my wife she would like it better than her Honda Civic, and that’s a heavy lift because she doesn’t have any reason to be dissatisfied with her current car (I take care of all of the ICE-hassles for her).Since my wife’s Honda Civic is holding up well, since she likes the car, and since I take care of most of the drawbacks of drawbacks of ICE ownership for her, there’s no urgency to replace this vehicle.Honestly, if a paid-off Honda Civic is my wife’s automotive hill to die on, that’s a pretty good place to be - even though I personally have to continue dealing the hassles and expenses of ICE ownership on her behalf.My plan is simply to wait-and-see what Honda does next. Maybe they’ll introduce the perfect EV for her one day, and I’ll just go buy it.