Much like their American counterparts, Europeans have, as a whole, shown much more interest in crossovers than sedans in recent years. Buyers in that region made the Ford Kuga PHEV Europe’s best-selling plug-in hybrid model last year, while the Puma cracked the top 20 list last year and the top-ten list back in January of this year. Thus, a few months after the Ford Fusion was discontinued in the U.S., FoMoCo announced that it would also stop selling the Ford Mondeo in Europe at the end of March after it’s been on sale there for 29 years, and now it has, according to Autocar.
The Ford Mondeo isn’t going away completely, as the all-new fifth-generation version of the long-running sedan just launched in China. However, the Mondeo will only be sold in that country moving forward, as it’s one of the few around the globe where customers are still buying sedans rather than crossovers and SUVs en masse.
The very last European Mondeo rolled off the assembly line at the Ford Valencia Assembly Plant in Spain on April 4th, marking the true end of an era. Ford’s purported “world car” originally launched in 1992 and was produced for four generations, long serving as one of the brand’s core models in Europe. Sales of the Mondeo declined sharply in recent years, however, going from 86,500 units in the UK alone back in 2001 to a mere 2,400 cars in 2020.
A Ford spokesperson attributed the discontinuation of the Mondeo in Europe to “changing customer preference” and added that the automaker is “evolving our passenger vehicle range in Europe to meet changing customer needs as we move to an all-electric future.” Part of that plan involves an investment of $4.5 million in the Ford Valencia Engine Plant to expand its battery pack assembly capacity, while the automaker’s 2.5L Atkinson-cycle hybrid powerplant will also be built at that location.
We’ll have more on the Mondeo sedan soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for more Fusion/Mondeo news and non-stop Ford news coverage.
Comments
As owner of a Ford Mondeo and as Ford customer for over 20 years, I will never change it for a boring SUV or crossover (ICE or EV). I´d rather go to other brand that sell sedans (like MB, Audi, BMW, VW, Hyundai, KIA, Tesla, Peugeot, Renault, Toyota, Alfa Romeo, Skoda, etc.), but there´s no human power that´s going to make me buy an SUV or a crossover for the simple reason that I don´t like them. Ford should keep at least one sedan in its lineup for those who don´t like SUV´s or crossovers and are not willing to buy one no matter what.
So Ford should keep one sedan in the lineup for the scant few buyers who want a sedan? I would love to see the business case for investing piles of money into designing a vehicle which actually loses money.
I really like that Mondeo station wagon.
This would have made a classy Lincoln Zephyr Touring
They should just put a liftkit and sell it as an SUV ..problems solved