Production 1992–present | ||
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Assembly Belgium: Genk (1992–2013)Russia: Vsevolozhsk (2009–present)Spain: Ford Valencia (2014–present) Class Mid-size / Large family car (D) Layout Front-engine, front-wheel-drive | ||
The Ford Mondeo is a mid-size or large family car manufactured by Ford from 1992 onwards. The name comes from Latin mundus, meaning "world". The Mondeo was designed to be a "world car"; the North American models were marketed as the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique until 2000, and as the Ford Fusion from 2013 onwards.
Motorsport
The Mondeo competed in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) between 1993 and 2000. The cars, prepared by former series champion Andy Rouse, did not enter the 1993 season until the 8th round at Pembrey in Wales. Rouse and Paul Radisich were the drivers in the Mondeo's first season. Radisich went on to win the FIA World Touring Car Cup in both 1993 and 1994 driving a Mondeo.
Ford ran a factory-sponsored team, called Ford Team Mondeo, for eight seasons. As mentioned above, Andy Rouse Engineering ran the cars from 1993 to 1995, at which point West Surrey Racing ran the works team from 1996 to 1998, with Prodrive taking over beginning 1999. In 2000, the team expanded from two cars to three when drivers Alain Menu and Anthony Reid were joined by 1998 series champion Rickard Rydell, recruited from the disbanded Volvo team. The team dominated the 2000 season, finishing 1–2–3 (Menu–Reid–Rydell) in the drivers' standings and winning the manufacturers' championship by a staggering 104 points.
A complete overhaul of the BTCC following the 2000 season saw the supertouring regulations scrapped as the series moved towards less expensive but slower race cars. Ford withdrew from BTCC competition prior to 2001.
The Touring Cars after their withdrawal went on sale to the public and are now in the hands of other drivers. Two of the 2000 series Mondeos have been spotted in the BRSCC series of LMA Euro saloons; drivers known to own them at present are Bernard Hogarth and Alvin Powell.
The Mk I and Mk II Mondeo have followed many other previous Ford models into the world of banger racing in the UK, and with many plenty of older cars being available for very little money, the Mondeo is now a popular and relatively easy car to race. The Zetec engines are converted to run off a carb set up and the Mondeo bodyshell is fairly tough, but they are proving rather rigid, with many drivers getting injured in high speed impacts. Mondeos are proving more popular than the Sierra and Mk III Granada.
In Argentina, the Mondeo is one of several cars to compete in the local Top Race racing category; its body handcrafted in reinforced fiberglass. The Mondeo is so far the most successful car in the category, with 3 championship titles in the TRV6 class and 2 championship titles in the Top Race Series (formerly Top Race Junior). The winning drivers in the TRV6 class were Omar Martínez (2006), José María López (2009) and Guido Falaschi (Copa América 2010) with the Mondeo II (based on the MkIII Mondeo), and in the TR Junior category, the championship was won by Gonzalo Perlo in 2008 and Humberto Krujoski in 2010. In 2009, the Mondeo III (based on the MkIV Mondeo) bodystyle was approved and presented as an option within the category; however, the Mondeo II bodywork is still being used.
Similarly, in the United States, the Fusion/Mondeo Mk 5 bodywork began use for the sixth generation body in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starting in 2013, replacing the current Mazda6-based Fusion.
Currently, the Aston Martin Vulcan uses a redesigned and fine tuned v12 engine, developed primarily based on the sketches of a v6 Mondeo engine from 1996. It shows the durability and potential capabilities the Mondeo can achieve.