Price as tested: €32,311
+ Handsome looks, gorgeous cabin, brilliant chassis, frugal engine
– S-Max more versatile, C-Max more affordable, soon to be replaced
= It may be plain wrapper, but the Mondeo is still solid gold all the way through
I seem to have been driving a gaggle of Fords lately, all of them slightly different, at different stages of their commercial and technical lives and yet all anchored around a familiar focal point; the Mondeo.
The Mondeo, a name that first came to us aboard Ford's epochal 1993 Sierra replacement, has become an Acme in so many ways. For a time, before the inexorable rise of the premium brands, it was the vehicular encapsulation of the motoring middle class. So much so, that in his 1997 run for the British premiership, Tony Blair actively courted and wooed 'Mondeo Man.'
That stands true for Irish motorists too, for the Mondeo has always been a strong seller here in its two and a bit decades, usually loitering near the top end of the top ten and pleasing, in its unassuming way, both business and family customers.
Its ubiquity has been under threat over the past decade though by the likes of the Volkswagen Passat and Toyota Avensis (an intra-class struggle) and, when cheap financing became available, the BMW 3 Series ( a classically Marxist class war). After all, if the monthly repayments were much the same, wouldn't you rather have a Munich badge on your keyring?
That competition stirred Ford to great lengths though. The 2000-2006 Mondeo was always a fine car to drive, well made and spacious, but it lacked the stylistic or qualitative appeal of the German car. The 2007 Mondeo, the one that is still with us, changed that utterly, granting the Mondeo genuinely handsome looks and a cabin that was close to equalling the BMW in terms of sheer class, and besting it for space.
Now, the current Mondeo is coming to the end of its life, and faces not just competition from the hordes of similar saloons and premium brands but also some internecine rivalry from the other three Fords I've been driving lately; the C-Max, the S-Max and the Kuga.
Let's take the Mondeo first. While many of us now deride the conventional four-box family saloon as moribund, there is a compelling reason for its becoming the archetype of the everyday car; it works. And as a Mondeo, it must be said, it works a damn sight better than most. Our test car came in black, which not only served to highlight its snazzy new LED daytime running lights but also brought with it a brooding sense of being Government Issue; a men-in-black appeal that is alien to many but seductive to a certain type of unreconstructed comic book fan. Ahem.
Inside, while the pleasant silvery surfaces of the centre console have been replaced with a plain-jane black finish, the levels of quality on offer are genuinely second to none. Our (pricey) Titanium spec car came with part-Alcantara seats that cosseted and lovely soft-touch surfaces and expensive looking dials and digital displays that pleased. Only a malfunctioning Bluetooth connection blotted the copybook. There remains proper lounging space in the back for six footers, and the boot is ever cavernous.
A 1.6-litre engine in such a large car (easily matching a nineties Scorpio against the measuring tape) would once have seemed a bad joke but the 110bhp 1.6 TDCI diesel acquits itself well. It will never qualify for the Indy 500, but it pulls with reasonable strength, cruises with a hushed rumble and returned, in our hands, a 6.0-litres per 100km fuel average; not as good as advertised but not bad, and 114g/km means you benefit from the lowest tax band.
As ever, it is the Mondeo's chassis that leaves the strongest impression. Ford, since 1993, has believed strongly that a car which pleases enthusiasts is equally (if subconsciously) pleasing to dunder-heads and that's a tough argument to quibble with. I've always felt that a car that feeds information back to the driver with proper clarity, even if that information isn't properly understood, is a safer car than some light-to-the-touch car which seeks to distance the driver from the action. A majority of drivers may not understand the nuances of steering feel or dynamic balance, but if the car is telling them what it's up to, at least they have that information to work with, whatever they may choose to do with it.
Whatever, the Mondeo retains the best dynamic repertoire in the class, matching engagement with comfort in a near-perfect balance, and that’c combined with impressive safety levels, especially given our car’s optional (€811) Driver Assistance pack, which includes a blind spot monitor, lande departure warning and self-dipping high-beam lights, amongst other useful safety and convenience toys.
So what can the likes of the C-Max or S-Max offer against this? Well, both can offer a similar feel of quiet sophistication (the S-Max sharing many of the Mondeo's cabin fittings and much of its chassis deportment) and both have the same, gorgeously liquid feel to drive. The C-Max's Focus-derived cabin can't match the Mondeo or the S for class, but it feels rigorously well built and both cars are above the class average for refinement. Both make compelling alternatives to the Mondeo's mainstream, and the C-Max’s sharp pricing can make the Titanium spec Mondeo look dangerously overpriced.
The runt of the litter here is the Kuga. It's up for replacement very shortly, which explains many of its shortcomings, but one must remember that the current Mondeo was launched at much the same time and that was worn its years with a deal more grace. The Kuga still looks fresh and pleasing from the outside, but once inside its case quickly dissolves. The cabin is lifted more or less directly from the previous generation Focus and looks and feels appalling cheap. The driving position is too perched up. The 2.0 TDCI engine is noisy in this application and unnecessarily thirsty. Even dynamically, the Kuga falls flat, lurching around on a too-high centre of gravity and exhibiting none of the liquid assurance of any of the other three.
So which one to go for? Well, the Kuga's out straight away and I'll give the C-Max the next bullet, not because of any particular shortcoming (aside from an comically slow-moving powered tailgate, an utterly pointless option) but simply because it lacks the final sheen of quality and sophistication of the other two. Then again, it is significantly more affordable, spec-for-spec, so perhaps that is only right and proper.
While my family man instincts should draw me to the S-Max, and while I do find its style and dynamic abilities (it remains the only MPV that's truly satisfying to drive) appealing, it's the supposedly humble Mondeo I'm going to plump for. It remains a remarkably talented car, one that can be affordably purchased (new or secondhand) by a vast swathe of the motoring populace who probably don't even realise the Wilsonian levels of never having had it so good that they're getting in to. Like the Kuga, the Mondeo is up for replacement in the next six months, but unlike the SUV, you'd never know it; it's going out at the absolute peak of its talents. It's supposedly humble Ford that's as good to drive, to sit in and to live with as any of the more expensive premium badge rivals and one that, five years on, remains the benchmark vehicle for all of its class competitors. Conventional? Yes. Predictable? Certainly? Satisfying? Very. Being different isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Facts & Figures
Ford Mondeo 1.6 TDCI Titanium
Price as tested:€32,311
Range price: €26,295 to €40,851
Cubic capacity: 1,560
Power: 115bhp
Torque: 270Nm
Maximum speed: 190kmh
0-100kmh: 11.9secs
Fuel consumption: 4.3l/100km (65.6mpg)
Co2 emissions: 114g/km
Tax band: A (€160)
EuroNCAP rating: 5-star adult, 4-star child, 2-star pedestrian
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