|
By EWAN
KENNEDY
24 August 2009
Ford
Australia imports its smaller vehicles from Europe not from Asia,
and plans to use this strategy against its biggest rivals, all of
whom have connections with the countries to Australia's north.
This ties in neatly with the tough and sporting reputation Ford
has enjoyed over the years.
Mondeo comes from Ford Europe and is built in Belgium. It's a
large car, only being about half a size down on Falcon. In Europe
it's regarded as a top end vehicle in the affordable range, but is
still struggling to find a major place in the minds of potential
Australian buyers.
A major makeover of the Mondeo could change all that. After
careful consideration, Ford has dropped the four-door sedan from
the import list. Not only was it competing (with little luck)
against Falcon, it looked to be a twin to the five-door Mondeo
hatchback – only the best of car spotters could pick the two
apart from a distance. This may have made sense in Europe, but not
here.
Australians love their station wagons, so Ford has replaced the
sedan with a big station wagon. While not as big as the huge
Falcon wagon, Ford Australia is delighted to announce the Mondeo
wagon has a larger luggage volume than the Commodore station
wagon. That situation arising because the previous long-wheelbase
Commodore wagons were discontinued at the time of the changeover
to the VE series and the latest GMH wagons are more boutique-Euro
than hulking Aussie in their theme.
We drove the new Ford Mondeo station wagon as part of the road
test program organised by Ford Australia in country Victoria, and
came away generally impressed with it. The load area is not only
large, but also easy to load. However, the tailgate hinges up a
long way to achieve this, and shorter people may struggle to reach
it to pull it closed. The hatches suffer from the same problem.
There's some booming from the wagon’s load area when it's driven
on rough roads. But it's minimal and similar to that in most other
wagons in this class. On good roads it has a nice feeling of
refinement and the ride is well controlled and comfortable.
At the same time as the wagon was launched, Ford Australia also
introduced a new model to the range. Ford Mondeo Titanium is the
luxury model sitting above the existing Zetec series. It is sold
only in the hatchback body and features a sunroof, 18-inch alloy
wheels on lowered suspension and adaptive cruise control. Titanium
appearance changes are the use of sporting style front grilles, a
full body kit, and foglamps front and rear.
The result is a sporty looking model with plenty of class on the
road. Titanium complements the full-on sports Mondeo, the XR5
Turbo, which has a 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine putting out a
very healthy 162 kilowatts of power, and up to 320 Newton metres
of torque. That torque is on tap all the way from 1500 revs to
4800 rpm. The result is excellent acceleration that's nicely
linear across the range, making the car most enjoyable and safe to
drive.
Ford has pushed the Mondeo into the high-tech end of the car
market. Even the base Mondeo LX has voice activated controls,
something that’s normally only found in upmarket European cars
costing tens of thousands of dollars more. Then there is Bluetooth
connectivity. Both of these features will prove particularly
useful to those using a Mondeo for business trips. Ford Australia
is presumably planning a big push on fleet buyers with this
updated model.
Safety to Australian NCAP standards for occupant protection has
been rated at the maximum of five stars. An ESP (Electronic
Stability Program) and ABS brakes help prevent crashes, and should
a collision become inevitable occupants are looked after by no
fewer than seven airbags, including one to protect the driver’s
knees.
The complete Ford Mondeo range, with prices (excluding government
and dealer charges) is:
LX 2.3-litre petrol five-door hatch: $31,990 (automatic)
LX 2.3-litre petrol five-door wagon: $32,990 (automatic)
Zetec 2.3-litre petrol five-door hatch: $36,990 (automatic)
Zetec 2.3-litre petrol five-door wagon: $37,990 (automatic)
Zetec TDCi 2.0-litre turbo-diesel five-door hatch: $39,990
(automatic)
Titanium 2.3-litre petrol five-door hatch: $42,990 (automatic)
Titanium TDCi 2.0-litre turbo-diesel five-door hatch: $45,990
(automatic)
XR5 Turbo 2.5-litre turbo-petrol five-door hatch: $44,990 (manual)
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
|
|
