Junkyard Find: 2000 Ford Focus ZX3 Kona Edition

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

During the middle 1990s, Volkswagen partnered with Wisconsin bicycle manufacturer Trek and sold Trek Edition Jettas, complete with a Trek mountain bike and roof rack. Ford marketers saw an opportunity to out-cool Volkswagen in the bicycle-car pairing department, and figured they’d go to the Pacific Northwest for the bike to include with their biked-up Focus.

Thus was the Kona Edition Focus born, and I managed to find one of these rarities in a self-service wrecking yard in California’s Central Valley.

The Kona Edition Focus came with a Blast mountain bike, made by the Kona Bicycle Company in Washington. Unfortunately for Ford and Kona, crank bolt problems led to what must be the first-ever automaker-issued bicycle recall.

The side moldings on the Kona Focus looked like mountain-bike tracks, which looked a lot better than the horrifying bike-themed upholstery in the Trek Jetta.

This one got forcibly retired after an airbag-deploying crash.

Was the driver on his way to the San Francisco Narcotics Anonymous Men’s Breakfast Committee Fall Dance when the crash occurred? Probably not, given the age of the flyer.

It looks as though some junkyard shopper wanted the front subframe but not the engine.

It’s likely the bicycle outlived the car in this case. Could it be this one?







Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Xantia10000 Xantia10000 on May 09, 2018

    Love this post - reminds me of my dark blue 2001 ZX3. It was fully loaded, except for the automatic. It even had a manual crank sunroof. Super fun to toss around at low-ish speeds. It did have a few problems though. When it rained, water would collect inside the rear foot well. After heavy rain the water was a good 3 inches deep. Apparently a drain that was supposed to channel water out of the car was misassembled, leading the water directly in! Under acceleration the headlamps and instrument panel gauges would dim and brighten continuously. The alternator needed to be replaced. And then the problem came back, so another alternator was fitted. And then this happened a third time. The driver door lock broke, so for a few months when I was waiting for the replacement part, I had to enter and exit Dukes of Hazard-style. The oil pan rusted out and leaked oil so we needed to get a new one of those. At 55k miles I was slightly tired of these niggling problems and sold it to a poor woman a few towns over. I hope she had better luck than I did!

    • JonBoy470 JonBoy470 on Jul 24, 2018

      By the time I’d unloaded my 2000 ZX3, after 8 years, 121k miles, a wife and two kids, the parts cannon had been fired at most of the front suspension, along with the steering rack and power steering pump, rear wheel bearings, A/C compressor, blower motor resistor (failed due to water ingress) throttle position sensor, driver side window regulator, the ignition switch (?!) the tailgate latch, and the parking brake cable. Towards the end, after it passed 100k I started letting stuff go. After the handle to flip the driver’s seat forward broke off in my hand, a flathead screwdriver lived on the floor next to the seat to actuate what was left of the mechanism. The sensor in the seat belt buckle that told the car I was buckled up also failed, and was fixed by disconnecting the wiring harness so the car always thought I was buckled. There was still a Freon leak after the compressor was replaced, but a can of R134a, added in with a cheapo DIY kit in late spring, was enough for the car to blow cold until the end of the summer. The best failure though, which wasn’t Ford’s fault, was when my (then two year old) son let the magic smoke out of the stereo by feeding spare change into the CD slot.

  • JonBoy470 JonBoy470 on Jul 24, 2018

    I remember these. Fresh out of college, my first new car was a 2000 Focus ZX3, bought in August 2000. I got a normal one, in “Infra-Red”. Had a love/hate relationship with that car. Loved driving it. It wasn’t a rocket ship, but you could hoon it some. Every bit a match for the Mk III Jetta VW was selling at the time. Just $4k cheaper for similar equipment. Unfortunately, the thing was a raging dumpster fire of mechanical unreliability. Lucky for me, the dealer had suckered me into a 6/100 bumper to bumper extended warranty, which, conservatively, paid for itself two or three times over. I ran the VIN through CarFax a few years after I traded it in, and found it had gone through a couple more owners in North Carolina, and finally met its end when it got T-boned on the passenger side. Hopefully the driver was alone in the car, as I’d skipped the side airbags. The dealer had a Kona package car, just like this one, but the Kona package added $1,795 to the sticker, which was a bit rich for my blood at the time. The “Dirt” color was actually same paint code as the $#!+ brown color that unmarked P71 Crown Vic cop cars came in.

  • ToolGuy This might be a good option for my spouse when it becomes available -- thought about reserving one but the $500 deposit is a little too serious. Oh sorry, that was the Volvo EX30, not the Mustang. Is Volvo part of Ford? Is the Mustang an EV? I'm so confused.
  • Mikey My late wife loved Mustangs ..We alway rented one while travelling . GM blood vetoed me purchasing one . 3 years after retirement bought an 08 rag top, followed by a 15 EB Hard top, In 18 i bought a low low mileage 05 GT rag with a stick.. The car had not been properly stored. That led to rodent issues !! Electrical nightmare. Lots of bucks !! The stick wasn't kind to my aging knees.. The 05 went to a long term dedicated Mustang guy. He loves it .. Today my garage tenant is a sweet 19 Camaro RS rag 6yl Auto. I just might take it out of hibernation this weekend. The Mustang will always hold a place in my heart.. Kudos to Ford for keeping it alive . I refuse to refer to the fake one by that storied name .
  • Ajla On the Mach-E, I still don't like it but my understanding is that it helps allow Ford to continue offering a V8 in the Mustang and F-150. Considering Dodge and Ram jumped off a cliff into 6-cylinder land there's probably some credibility to that story.
  • Ajla If I was Ford I would just troll Stellantis at all times.
  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
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