Is the Ford Mondeo dead? | Car Talk - Car News Aug 2013

16:27 Tuesday 05 May 2015

The Ford Mondeo has been with us for twenty years now and in that time it has become something of a national institution.

Even if you've never owned a Mondeo, chances are that you've driven one or at least ridden in one. Indeed, it was no coincidence that when Tony Blair went after 'Mondeo Man' in the run up to the 1997 General Election, New Labour were elected by a landslide. In fact, you could argue (if you were a bit mad) that the Mondeo's part in the election of His Toniness makes Ford's D-segment darling indirectly responsible for the Iraq War. Now there's a thought...

The thing is, I have a sneaking suspicion that the next Mondeo could be the last. And here's why.

Forty years ago, the Mondeo's granddad, the Ford Cortina, was Britain's biggest selling car. Ten years later in 1982, however, the smaller C-segment Ford Escort outsold its bigger brother (which by this time was the Sierra) for the first time and ever since then Ford's C-segment competitor has outsold its D-segment stablemate.

Initially, of course, this could have been chalked up to more conservative buyers being put off by the Sierra's space-age looks and opting instead for the more traditional-looking Escort and its booted equivalent the Orion.

However, in the long term, it undeniably shows a shift in British buyers' preferences from the larger D-segment cars to the smaller C-segment ones.

Ford Cortina

Gone are the days of D-segment dominance

There's more evidence of this downsizing further down the food chain. Take a look at the Ford Focus. From its launch back in 1998 right the way up to 2009 it was Britain's best-selling car, a position which was snatched from it by the Fiesta, which has remained Britain's top-selling motor ever since.

So, twenty-seven years after the Cortina lost its crown to the Escort, the Escort's successor lost its crown to the Fiesta.

There could be a number of reasons for this change. The recession has undoubtedly had an effect by forcing buyers into smaller, cheaper and more economical cars, but I think the issue runs deeper than that.

Cars, as we all know, are getting bigger. The Ford Ka is longer than the original Fiesta, the current Fiesta is bigger than the Mk1 Escort and the current Focus is longer than the original Cortina of the early 1960s.

The worrying thing, however, is that the latest Mondeo is larger than the final Granada/Scorpio which was killed off by Ford in the late 90s. A car which was killed off, arguably, for being simply too big.

Ford Granada Scorpio

Is the Mondeo destined to go the same way as the Granada Scorpio?

Of course, the problem with the Granada was that it was a domestic, mainstream car which was trying to appeal to an increasingly aspirational market. But when you consider that the Mondeo has since 2006 been outsold by the BMW 3 Series, it could be argued that the Mondeo is awaiting a similar fate.

Plus, you have to wonder how many buyers actually need a D-segment car these days. If you have a family, the S-MAX is arguably a better choice; if you don't, what's wrong with a Fiesta or a Focus? They're cheaper, smaller and just as practical ninety-nine per cent of the time.

So, is it the case that Ford's entire model line-up is destined to grow and grow in size until it becomes simply too big and implodes in on itself like a neutron star, only to be replaced by a new, smaller model at the bottom of the range? I've drawn up a table below to illustrate this point.

	Sub-A segment	A segment	B segment	C Segment	D Segment	E segment
1973				Escort	Cortina	Granada
1983			Fiesta	Escort	Sierra	Granada
1993			Fiesta	Escort	Mondeo	Granada
2003		Ka	Fiesta	Focus	Mondeo
2013		Ka	Fiesta	Focus	Mondeo
2023?	New small Ford	Ka	Fiesta	Focus

The Fiesta, for example, was introduced in 1976 to fulfil the need for a new, smaller car at the bottom of the Ford range. Fast forward 19 years to 1996, and the Fiesta itself was being undercut by the Ka at the bargain basement end of the line-up. Could it be the case that the Ka itself could soon be replaced by a new model as the baby of the Ford range while the Mondeo joins the Granada, the Consul and the Scorpio in the Ford Retirement Home for Irrelevant Large Cars?

2014 Ford Mondeo

Will the next Mondeo help to revive the car's flagging fortunes?

Based on what we've seen of the new Mondeo, we hope this isn't the case. Not only does the new car look fantastic to our eyes, there's also something fundamentally reassuring about a big Ford. It's the car your dad used to drive, it's the minicab you vomited in the back of. It is, in short, a British icon.

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