Whenever you read that a new car is based on the platform of an existing model, there is a temptation to believe that the two are one and the same in all bar cosmetic detail. Yes, the Kuga owes some of its basic architecture to the Focus, but to regard the Kuga as a Focus in plus fours is to underestimate entirely how much work Ford has had to do to create the Kuga.
For a start, it shares not a single significant dimension with the Focus, being 6mm longer, 3mm wider and 250mm higher. Even its wheelbase – usually a dead giveaway when one car pretends to be another – has been pulled out by some 50mm compared with the Focus.
But perhaps the most significant difference is their weight. Next to a five-door Focus hatch equipped with the same engine, Ford’s own figures show the Kuga to weigh a socking 239kg more than the Focus.
For that you can thank not only its more substantial dimensions but also the installation of a four-wheel drive system that will spend the vast majority of its working life driving the front wheels alone, pulling the rest of its hardware along as redundant weight.
In fact, the area in which the Kuga mimics the Focus most closely is its suspension, which not only uses front struts like the Focus, but also employs Ford’s well known and startlingly effective control blade multi-link rear axle.
This 2.0-litre diesel motor is the only engine that will be available at the Kuga’s June launch, but a 197bhp, five-cylinder petrol version will be on sale before Santa’s next visit and a 175bhp 2.2-litre diesel – we’d be mightily surprised if it were not the optimum model – is on the cards from early next year.
As it stands, this Kuga develops 134bhp, which is not exactly a thrilling prospect from a car that outweighs certain BMW 5-series and E-class Mercedes.