Sad times: the Ford Mondeo is dead

Bad news – the venerable Ford Mondeo will be “phased out” in early-2022, as its maker reacts to “growing change[s] in customer preference” in Europe. The factory in Valencia, Spain, in which the Mondeo is currently built, will instead build EV battery packs and the 2.5-litre petrol engine for the Ford Kuga, Galaxy and S-Max hybrids.

Ford has sold over five million Mondeos since it was launched in 1993. It was hugely successful (at least in Europe) for the first half of its life, but sales began to slide as middle England decided it’d much sooner have an SUV/crossover (or low-spec BMW, Audi or Mercedes) instead. Apparently some 81,000 Mondeos were sold in the UK in 2001, but last year Ford only shifted a paltry 2,400.

Now, after almost three decades on sale, Ford has been forced to admit the Mondeo has no place in the SUV-centric future that demands the company go all-electric by 2030. Ford says it’ll offer plug-in hybrid versions of all its cars by 2026, and that its “first European-built, volume all-electric passenger vehicle” will land in 2023.

Through the years the Mondeo has become something of a Great British icon. You might have heard the term ‘Mondeo man’, used by Tony Blair in the mid-Nineties to represent the group of voters that eventually helped elect him Prime Minister.

The Nineties was peak Mondeo – it was the saloon, and the first Ford designed to be a “global car” (though it was only really successful in Europe). Everyone either had one or knew someone who did. It was a great car too, and has been for much of its life (though today’s model is a bit average).