Reviewed: Chang’an Ford Mondeo

---

Since the death of the Ford Sierra, the Ford Mondeo has quickly become the class standard for the sales rep mobile across Europe. Some sales reps aspire to the BMW, some go for the latest Opel Insignia, but the vast majority opt (or, at least, their fleet manager opts) for the safety of a Ford Mondeo, hence the term ‘Mondeo Man’ came into conception. It seems that every 30 something British male drives a Mondeo, even James Bond got into a Mondeo in the Bond film before last, when the term ‘Bondeo’ was quickly coined.

Chang’an Ford were kind enough to lend us a top of the range Mondeo in sports trim over the weekend. We took the Mondeo, and the Ford Fiesta sedan, for a quick blast around the Great Wall on the outskirts of Beijing. Ford say that the Mondeo is following the kinetic design theory, as with the rest of the current Ford line up. My first thoughts on seeing the Ford Mondeo was sheer bewilderment, surely this is the new Ford Granada, and not the new Mondeo. The previous generation Mondeo was a slender vehicle, the new Mondeo is ten times larger than the USS Regan. You see, the Chinese one is actually 100mm longer than the Euro one (The UK spec sedan measures in at LxWxH 4844mm*1886 *1500) and it only comes in sedan form, so it’s a huge vehicle measuring (LxWxH)4854mm*1886*1495. The Mondeo is clearly aiming at the upper middle class business user in China and will probably find its customers are the ones that want an Audi A6, but can’t afford one. That’s not to say the Mondeo is a poorer alternative. The Mondeo’s interior is very luxurious – the one we received was the 2.3l sports model, complete with a handsome bodykit, this particular model has the Australian Mondeo XR5 styling, but with the naturally aspirated 2.3l engine rather (delivering 160bhp) than the 2.5 Turbo unit the Aussies get. The leather seats are about as comfortable as they come, they envelope the driver into a comfortable position, and the rear seats have more legroom than the first class seats on a China Eastern flight. The central console is dominated by a large screen, which apparently tells you a lot of information, although we didn’t get much time to play with it.

Driving the 2.3L Mondeo is a pleasure. It has go, but it is more of a highway wafter than a performance car. It seems more than happy to sit at 120kph, but the car kept bleeping and telling us not to go much further on this particular stretch of road due to speed cameras, a very clever car indeed. The automatic gearbox hardly had any noticeable gear changes from what we could tell, but even at 110kph it sat at 1500rpm, which makes the Mondeo a great gas saver. Fellow tester, Pete Carter, quickly found out that the Mondeo’s brakes are rather fantastic when a 30m long truck pulled out in front of him, forcing him to apply the Mondeo’s brakes to their maximum. I personally had nothing interesting happen to me on the way back to Ford, other than attempting to pilot the gigantic Ford Mondeo through Beijing rush hour traffic, where it performed very well, cutting through Beijing traffic like a hot knife through cold butter. Pete even managed to sharply turn off the highway when he was at the helm of the Fiesta, possibly trying to loose me on purpose, but the Mondeo managed to keep up with the nimble Fiesta just as well.

For the Mondeo men who are reading, the boot is huge, we found a parcel in the back of ours. We’re not sure who put it there, or if they left it there on purpose to demonstrate how big the boot is, but we were assured that the boot is very big. The sedans rear end styling is the sort where you will either instantly love it, or hate it. Luck would have it that I actually quite like it.

Talking with Ford’s Product Communications Director for the Ford Asia Pacific and Africa regions, Mr. Craig Von Essen, it seems that Ford have no immediate plans to introduce the Mondeo Wagon (a European family staple) into China, it seems that Ford are waiting to see where the market goes before they introduce models from their vast portfolio. But if nobody takes the step to introduce a different car, people won’t get the chance to buy one, and nobody will see where the market is going.

China Car Times Verdict: If you’re a highway warrior or a city slicker looking for comfort in a sedan for the third of the price of a similar German car, then this is the car for you, it’s really worth its price.
Models: 2.0l, 2.3l sedan only. Base model has a manual gearbox, the rest are automatics.
Pricing: From 169,800rmb to 220,980rmb.

Much thanks to Craig, and Wesley at Ford for making this happen, and also to Martin at Automotive APR for checking my spelling.

Updated: Mr. Von Essen’s title.