Bond`s Ford Mondeo from Casino Royale scoops best new car award

The Mondeo was voted best new car, best family car and best estate by British magazine, Auto Express - reports Cars Guide.

Good news for Ford ahead of the release of its Mondeo medium-sized car later this year: it has just been named British car of the year.

Editor-in-chief David Johns described it as “Ford's finest ever car”.

“Each and every model, whether hatchback, saloon or estate, has been designed and engineered to the highest standards. The car oozes quality, especially in the cabin which has levels of equipment and comfort which sets new standards for the class.”

Ford Australia public affairs brand manager Edward Finn said such prestigious awards were like gold.

“It will certainly go some way towards emphasising the class of the new model well ahead of its arrival in Australia,” he said.

Other winners in the Auto Express awards included Honda Civic (best compact family car and best hot hatch for the Type R), Citroen C4 Picasso (Best people mover) and Kia for its industry-leading seven-year warranty.

The new Mondeo, which featured in the most recent James Bond movie Casino Royale, will be its third incarnation in Australia, with the other two dismal sales failures.

Ford Australia has not yet confirmed which models or specs we will get, but it comes in sedan, hatch and wagon in Europe with a host of standard features such as electronic stability control and an 'Easyfuel' system which has the fuel cap in the filler cover.

Advanced features include adaptive cruise control with forward alert, interactive vehicle dynamics control with hill launch assist, and a tyre pressure monitoring system.

It comes with a wide range of petrol Duratec engines from 1.6 to a 164kW 2.5-litre and a 1.8 and two 2-litre Duratorq diesel engines with five and six-speed manual transmissions and a six-speed auto.

Finn said they had confirmed in March that the two-litre turbo diesel would be one of the power train options, but he would not elaborate.

He said that depending on the model selected, Mondeo would be available in sedan or hatch bodystyles, with manual or automatic transmissions and one of three different trim levels.

“After having driven Mondeo when living in New Zealand, I'm hugely excited about it coming to Australia and am anticipating big things of it,” Finn said.

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