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Massive motor is king of the hill

Wednesday, 30 January 2008

Ford’s impressive new Mondeo was recently named Semperit Irish Car of the Year for 2008. Since its launch last May the Mondeo has been selling like the proverbial hot cakes with over 2,300 units sold in the past six months.
Accepting the prize at the Car of the Year awards dinner in Dublin, Ford Ireland’s Cork-born Managing Director Eddie Murphy said that he came from a county that make a habit of winning back-to-back titles. That was a broad hint that Ford expect to do very well again this year with their new Kuga, which will be the company’s first SUV model.

It was the second time that the Mondeo has got most votes from the Irish motoring journalists, as an earlier model had won in 1994. There was a revamp in 2001, but this new model is a completely new design.
This is a huge, comfortable car and after a week climbing into a jeep my wife, who has a back problem, was very impressed with the relaxing seats. There is plenty of room for five adults and you could squeeze in a myriad of items, golf clubs etc into the spacious boot. It’s a very long motor and it seemed to take up more space in my driveway than the jeep did a week earlier.
As usual with Ford the radio/CD controls are well laid out and easy to use. The radio controls and various other knobs and buttons are housed in a chrome area on the dash, which looks very well. There are also slave controls for the radio/CD on the sporty-looking steering wheel. The headlamps also give the car a sporty look and the rear end is very neatly finished.
The award-winning Mondeo seems to be at the heart of everything Ford is doing right now as it provides the platform for their S-Max, C-Max and Galaxy models.
My friends in the car sales business tell me that the Mondeo is very popular especially in the fleet trade. So if you can’t afford a new one you could wait until the fleet companies are trading in at the end of the year.
There are 40 different models of the Mondeo with a choice of seven different engines. The car is available in three different body styles, four-door saloon, five-door hatchback and estate. Prices start at e24,995 for the 1.6 LX manual five speed and go up to e42,945 for the 2.0 Titanium model.
Electronic Stability Control (ESP), which is a great help if you have to suddenly apply the brakes, is standard on all models.
It truly is a massive motor and apart from fleet or family use, a car like this would I feel be ideal for the limousine business. A flexi-fuel version will be available shortly.
The Mondeo with 122 points had 18 points to spare over the Kia Cee’d in the Semperit Car of the Year voting, while one of my favourites last year the Nissan Qashqai finished in third place on 86 points.

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