It’s always hurtful to an auto enthusiast when a trendsetting and very successful vehicle calls it a day. Now it’s time for the Ford Mondeo to leave the tracks forever.
It was the first vehicle from the company to be called a world car and it has been very successful since its launch. The vehicle is also regarded as one of the most successful and brilliant family models from the company. Mondeo was revealed in 1993 and since then over 5 million units have been sold in Europe. But after 29 years of a successful run, the vehicle will be pulled away from the showrooms in March 2022. It will be a big moment, but it’s not like there will be many who would notice it. You must be thinking about why we are saying this if it’s such a significant model. It’s because, today, they are only a few customers who want to purchase this model.
If you look at the car’s sales graph, you can see how the market has changed over the decades and it will be the best graphic illustration of this. At the start of the 90s, when the vehicle was labeled as the first global car from the company, the model help the brand enter a new era in which it only saw success.
It offered front-wheel drive, which was unexpected at that time from a vehicle, as big as this. It offered a bold design and driving quality not matched by many. Even if you look at our reaction when the car arrived in 1993, it can tell you how big an event that was.
When we published the launch story that consisted of a 12-page technical breakdown of the model, many of our colleagues termed it as the best thing they have done ever. After 3 weeks of publishing the launch story, we get to drive the vehicle for the first time. We published 9 pages to describe our driving experience and if you read that you will know how high we rated this vehicle.
After a few days, we requested to get another model as well as its several rivals including models from Alpha and BMW. We wanted to test which vehicle is the best and we published the result containing 30 pages in which Mondeo was a clear winner.