Earlier this summer, the new Peugeot 508 got a whole lot of approving nods from automobile experts and Just last week, the new and very tasty Honda Civic saloon car was launched amidst positive plaudits. The Ford Mondeo brought a new type of excellent responsive front-wheel driving to the marque, which, in the words of one noted commentator, had been “launching some of the worst-handling Fords in a generation”.
The engineers who made a flashback comment to Andrew English’s mandate to celebrate the 20 years anniversary of the Mondeo said his celebration “had thrown off the accountants’ shackles and under the leadership of welsh engineering wizard Richard Parry-Jones said, ‘Never again’
“The Ford Mondeo was their first car, and even now to have worked on the original Mondeo is the source of immense pride.”
Though the very name Mondeo meant world, the Ford Mondeo was built to be a world car which could sell around the world broadly unchanged. But unfortunately didn’t happen for years.
According to English, the Ford Mondeo is said to be the car that taught the public that steering integrity, low noise and vibration and top-notch ride and handling do matter.
“And those were the very reasons why I was delighted to be back in a Mondeo at the beginning of this month.”
This was especially so as it was the first hybrid model and with grants comes in at around €9,000 cheaper than the equivalent diesel, even though I was driving the very top-of-the-range Vignale model at €35,240, €2,500 above the entry-level Titanium Mondeo HEV.
