It’s finally here! After a few teasers over the course of the last few months, Sime Darby Auto Connexion has finally brought Ford’s D-segment fighter to the market. The Mondeo, or the Fusion as it’s known in America, is a great complement to the Fiesta and Focus models in the range.
There are numerous variants of the Mondeo available overseas, such as wagon and liftback form, but the singular variant of the Mondeo we get here is more than enough to chase the segment leaders. We were wooed by the previous generation Mondeo, a car that had a class-leading powertrain and driving dynamics that really outshone the competition. The powertrain returns with this generation, being that wonderful 2.0-litre EcoBoost motor that we’ve come to know and love in a number of Ford and Volvo models.
So good was the Mondeo that we felt it could stick it to the luxury sports sedans- and rather surprisingly we found that the gap was a lot closer than expected. Naturally the interior of the Mondeo was a little lacking: Ford seems to have issues with outfitting their cars in terms of equipment, as they have been tied to the SYNC system over the last few years. SYNC 2 is slowly making it’s way into the market, and will be present on the Ranger and Everest models. It is also present in this iteration of the Mondeo.
This new Mondeo should be an interesting contender. It sits in a price bracket that is neither D-Segment, but nor is it quite luxury car price either. It’s a good balance between the two, perhaps as a good interim. Priced at RM198,000 on-the-road (RM203,771 with insurance) in Peninsular Malaysia, the new Mondeo is available in four stylish colours – Frozen White, Ruby Red, Panther Black and Tectonic Silver.
