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18 Mai 2007, 08:05
$1 scrie:$2I remember when the launch of a new Mondeo was a knee-tremblingly exciting event. We'd hold the front page, and several others besides. We'd talk about the future of family motoring. Now we don't.
Partly that's because Ford has been teasing us along for far too long now - from the Iosis show car in September 2005, through a conceptised version of the real thing, then Bond's hire car which was itself a little way from actual production trim... sorry guys, just how elevated do you imagine our boredom threshold to be?
But more significantly, the launch of a new Mondeo isn't so newsworthy because cars like that have slipped down the agenda. Rather than have a top-spec Ford or Vauxhall or Peugeot, people now opt either for premium metal - the 3-Series, A4, Lexus IS and the rest, even if that means putting up with a slow and sparse base spec - or swap sectors completely and go for, say, an SUV.
This five-cylinder turbo Mondeo shows they're missing out. I've nothing against the likes of the 3-Series but I really couldn't be putting up with the sloth of the cheap versions when there's this Mondeo for the same money. It's big, well-equipped and fast. So it shows up well on paper. On the road it's even better.
We know a lot about this car already because it's closely related to the Galaxy and S-Max, and indeed to the Mk2 Volvo S80 and V70, and slightly more distantly to the new Freelander. Ford is clever at re-using suspensions and engines, safety systems, aircon units and all sorts of hidden and frankly rather dull gubbins (window winding mechanisms or fuel tanks, anyone?).
The Mondeo has a five-cylinder Volvo turbo engine at the top of the range, and below that a 140bhp four-pot 2.0 diesel.
There's a selection of five and six speed gearboxes, and three bodies, saloon - which will be widely ignored in Britain - hatchback and estate. Since Bill's had the diesel hatch, I'm immersing myself in the big petrol engine and the estate body.
I think the estate is the best looking of the Mondeos, and I've always held the belief that estates, if they've got something proper under the bonnet, aren't just more useful than four-doors but emphatically cooler too.
The Mondeo is the first car designed from scratch since Ford took on Martin Smith as its design chief and adopted his 'Kinetic Design' theme. Martin's a bluff northerner who doesn't usually use such flowery figures of speech, but the car itself explains the theme better than the word kinetic can.
All Fords from now on will have that trapezoid lower grille. The headlamps stretch back to the front wheelarches, there's a big shoulder with a crease beneath it, the side glass kicks up at the back and the rear screen has a characteristic six-sided shape. Smith also loves his bling details - check that egg crate grille, and the chrome on the rear lamps.
The Mondeo is big, too, and about 100kg heavier than the old one. That's the legacy of sharing so much with a big Volvo luxo-barge. When I tried the diesel I did think it was a bit sluggish, especially as Ford's 2.0-litre TDCi has a narrower torque band than the best modern diesels. Before long the Mondeo will have a 2.2-litre twin-turbo diesel option. Dieselists, wait for that if you can.
But the five-cylinder turbo petrol doesn't have any trouble swatting this big estate and all its contents down the road. There's a jazzy, syncopated warble to its sound, and the turbo cuts in good and early and blows hard all the way around the rev clock, so you change gear at a time of your own choosing.
But beware: when I was enjoying all this to the full, driving it like a disposable holiday rentacar in the hills of Sardinia, the trip computer showed somewhere the wrong side of 14mpg. That weight again. In real life you wouldn't find roads that are such fun, and so you'd do better, but not as well as the official figure of 30-plus.
The ride is properly big-car comfy too. Like a Jaguar's, honestly, and certainly a lot better than most German 'luxury' cars. It doesn't just soak up big potholes and ridges, but does a good job of smothering cat's eyes and the like. There's very little road noise, too. You could do some industrial-level repping in this car and arrive without even the beginnings of frazzlement. Alternatively you could take it for a drive across Russia.
But if the ride is soft and the car heavy, how's it going to manage the nimble feeling that was always a Mondeo speciality? The sad truth is, it doesn't. Not quite. You have to swing the steering wheel fairly energetically to turn it into a tight bend. But it's a Ford and handling is a Ford thing. Everything is progressive, and the body movements stay well under control even if the road bucks and dips during a bend.
At the limit of grip you get lots of warning about whatever's happening, and it's easy to trim the attitude with the throttle, even with the ESP active.
It's the fluency of this car that's so impressive, the way it combines suppleness with handling fun, the way no bump or corner seems ever to catch it with no answer.
Ford has started offering suspension options. There's a regular set-up, a sport one - firmer springs and dampers - and a version with the regular springs but adaptive damping, called Integrated Vehicle Dynamics Control.
You get three buttons on the dash (comfort, normal and sport) to select between adaptive programmes, but as the programmes converge toward firm damping in a corner, the main difference is in straight-line ride.
Comfort is a bit floaty, sport is marginally on the firm side, so you'll inevitaby default to normal. The sport suspension, which I sampled on optional 18-inch wheels, is a little knobbly in a straight line but definitely gives an extra enthusiasm in the first part of the steering wheel's arc. Maybe the sport suspension with the 17s is optimal. And I suspect optimal for a Mondeo is unattainably good for any other competitor.
There's been a huge step ahead in quality. The cabin design is a lot less plain than before, but all these extra plastic pieces have luxury textures and good fit. For a start, the doors are wrapped in soft materials that Ford never bothered with in the past.
A new menu-driven interface for the electronic and entertainment kit means the steering wheel has 16 buttons plus the horn - 18 if you get radar cruise control. But it's all surprisingly easy to use, especially on the versions which have a colour screen between the rev-counter and speedo.
The front seats are terrific, and there's room to stretch in the back - something the 3-Series and the like definitely don't offer. The estate's boot is chest of drawers size. Oddly though, you don't get roof bars as standard.
You get a lot of other kit though. Every Mondeo in the launch range, which begins with a £15k 1.6 petrol, gets cruise control, aircon, ESP and seven airbags including one under the steering column.
Here's a clever idea. There's no fuel cap. You pop open the flap in the body and there's a hole, with a blanking shutter just behind it.
Say you've got a petrol Mondeo, you can't fill it with diesel because a diesel pump nozzle is bigger diameter and won't fit the hold. But say you've got a diesel Mondeo; the small-diameter nozzle of a petrol pump doesn't fit either because it won't push apart the little levers that open the shutter. So for a start you can't put the wrong fuel in, and for a second thing you don't have to handle a fuel cap, and will never drive off with it on the roof of the car.
That sort of careful touch can really help you to build a good relationship with your car. But this is an easy car to fall for anyway. It does so much so well.
The paradox is, the five-cylinder Mondeo is only going to be driven by Ford management, Ford dealers and motoring journalists. Ford knows no one will buy it because of the stranglehold of the prestige brands. And if everyone wants a new BMW or Mercedes or Audi, as sure as night follows day everyone in the second-hand market also wants one of those three.
So Mondeos depreciate, which means this temptingly priced Titanium X 2.5 will actually cost you a lot more to run than the 320i Touring that costs similar cash new. Oh dear. Buy a Mondeo only if it's with your boss's money.
Still, Ford does now have a good way to fight depreciation. In the past the production line in Belgium built only Mondeo, so whenever real-life demand went soft they had to keep the line busy by selling it at huge discounts to fleets, which is catastrophic for used values.
Now the line also builds the Galaxy and the hot-selling S-Max, which means Ford can defer the day it has to over-supply the Mondeo into the discount bloodbath. But we've heard similar promises before from Ford's mass-market competitors, and it usually hasn't worked.
There's a bigger reservation about the new Mondeo. The 1.6 and 1.8 engines, even the 2.0 petrol probably, are going to have their work cut out to haul such a weighty car along. Interestingly, Ford hasn't yet fielded any of the small engines for us to sample.
Other than that, the news is all positive. OK, so no one's getting excited about the new Mondeo. But maybe they should.
Paul Horrell
23 Mai 2007, 11:19
23 Mai 2007, 17:25
24 Mai 2007, 15:25