FORD’S Mondeo has always been a very good company car.
But now Ford has sent its engineers under the bonnet to sharpen up CO2 emissions.
Without affecting performance, Ford has dropped the CO2 emissions from 129g/km to 119g/km.
In company car tax terms, that’s a drop from the 20% company car tax band to the 18% company car tax band.
So that will be a nice shaving off the Mondeo company car tax bill.
But it doesn’t end there. While the engineers were working under the bonnet, the Ford marketing department was plushing up the interior.
And what they’ve introduced is a new Titanium X Business Edition.
This new Mondeo Titanium X Business Edition provides lashings of leather, brilliant bits of tech kit (including touchscreen satellite navigation so you won’t get lost amongst all that luxurious hide), and to keep everyone happy – including the accountant – even better running costs, says Ford.
That’s because the new Mondeo Titanium X Business Edition replaces the outgoing Titanium X, but is £1500 cheaper – so P11D values are more favourable for company car users – yet the residual values have gone up (which should help lower business car leasing deals).
For those small business owners who prefer to run their cars privately, and reimburse themselves with business pence per mile costs, they’ve not been forgotten.
The Business Edition is going to appeal to user chooser company car drivers
There’s also the new Ford Mondeo Graphite model at a hugely tempting £15,995 price point.
This Mondeo Graphite features 17in alloys and LED daytime running lamps as part of its standard specification, and there’s also a sporting rear spoiler to complete the look.
“While the Mondeo Graphite will help boost retail sales, the Business Edition is going to appeal to user choosers in the company car market,” commented Mark Ovenden, Ford managing director.
“Offering Ford Mondeo customers more features at a more competitive price, along with outstanding fuel economy, has always been a winning Ford formula.
“But for company car drivers this lowering of CO2 emissions is significant, and they can drive a car that enjoys a very good specification.”
Having done all that Ford has decided to whittle down the Mondeo variants available to just five (see table).
Five Ford Mondeo lines
- Graphite
- Edge (an edition mainly for larger company car fleet users)
- Zetec Business Edition
- Titanium X Business Edition; and
- Titanium X Sport
It’s all part of a slimmed down and improved Mondeo company car line up.
Why?
It’s all to do with the delay to the new Ford Mondeo, which is already on sale in the US, and was due here at the start of the year.
However, the UK version has been put back until the end of 2014 while Ford moves its Mondeo manufacturing base to Spain.
“The delay to Mondeo was not something we’d planned so we wanted to continue the momentum of the present car,” explained Mark.