Oddly enough I’ve no problem with 3 cylinder bikes, and Triumph have made some really nice triples over the years, although I’ve never actually owned one.
Every time I’ve started looking for and test riding new bikes there’s always been something from another manufacturer with more appeal.
I’ve always quite fancied a Mondeo estate, since the ‘executive’ Fords were canned and the Mondeo became the top of the heap. Big capable things and quite low profile, I avoid cars that attract the wrong sort of attention. They seem to soldier on long after Audis and BMWs have become money pits, and they can certainly take the miles.
Although “Mondeo man” made the name a byword for average, it’s a truism that the best solution to most things is a compromise, for a car that means trading off and reconciling utility, cost, performance, comfort and durability to get to an acceptable level of all.
I remember someone caning a hired saloon in the mid/late 90’s down some bypass or other at 100mph, and thinking what a swift, comfortable machine it was.
Is there a reasonably economical petrol one in the range I wonder, it might make the man maths work… I think you can even get a proper auto now, instead of the horrible Powershift.
Yaris GR 3 pot 250 BHP detuned rally weapon seems to get raved.
Maybe things have improved since the old Suzi (half a Porsche) 3 pots!.
Always had default Luddite aversion about 900cc/ 1ltr hyper mills churning 130/180 bhp though.
Ford seemed to have sorted the Ecoboosts though from a fiery demise.
Wife had one of the last square shaped (2007?) mondeo st estate diesel prior to moving over to CX5’s. Had a huge dog cage in the back, did everything well, and bar a couple of rear drop links needed nothing except scheduled maintenance over 100k miles. Very good to drive, easily comparable with our previous 5 series. It sold for what I thought was an optimistic price to the first person to view it.
A good car.
I had a couple of Mondeo’s back in the day; you can’t beat a bit of Dagenham Iron, I’ve had a good few Escorts (not the Wayne Rooney type 
) MK1, 2, 3 & 4, maybe 5; and an XR3i in there and a Fiesta along the way just for good measure. My daily drive now is a Focus too.
Very sad to see the name disappear.
Like a lot on here are saying the choice of cars is getting less and less inspiring as time goes on 
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I had a Mk3 2006 Ghia X 2.2 TDCI. I did a de-cat and mapped it. Great car but I knew all the problems that crop up when you get to around 60k miles with the TDCI so swapped it for a Mk4 2009Tintanium X Sport 2.2 TDCI which had the newer version of the engine without all the problems. Great car packed with stuff and fast but it was a barge and just sill for the daily commute so I downsized. Both are still on the road though which is good but the MOT history of the Mk3 shows I did the right thing!.
It would be good to see the roads again full of Mondeos and Insignias… and the only SUV’s were Range Rovers and Land Cruisers…! Other than the higher seating position which does improve the view ahead, I just don’t get them
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I purchased brand new 2007 Mk4 Titanium X straight from its launch and wish I hadnt wasted my money £24000, it had so many design issue’s that for such an expensive car should not have been there, some of which were dangerous. It was very in my opinion underdeveloped and drove me to buy my 1st Mazda 6, now on my 6th.
I had a couple of 3 cyl Mini Cooper F56’s and they sounded quite good.
My company car is a skoda octavia 1.0, so 3 cylinder turbo, go like stink and will cruise at 80 (were legal) giving 56 to the gallon.
Mondeos were great, practical cars, but as Countryboy said everyone’s buying SUVs now. Of course when the term Mondeo Man started it was as a political shorthand for an entire class of aspirational upwardly-mobile people. There just isn’t anything aspirational about a Ford saloon now. People aspire to have a “lifestyle” vehicle, whose ads feature outdoorsy sports, or something with a Mercedes badge which was beyond '90s Mondeo Man’s imagination of what he could aspire to.
I hope that the current fad for large and surprisingly uneconomical mild-hybrid SUVs will be fairly short lived. Otherwise we’re going to need more than a huge EV charging infrastructure, we’re going to need a wholesale enlargement of parking places too.
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Parking spaces are already to small, just compare the 70’s Fiesta with the current one or the mk 1 Mondeo with the current Mk 5 or 6
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I have a Mk4 Mondeo and have owned it for 10 years.
It’s the only car I have ever owned that long and I can’t fault it. It’s big, sometimes too big, comfy, good on fuel, swallows my bikes in the back with wheels on, it’s ultra reliable and even on the original battery.
It’s only just developed a fault I’d class as a repair, some fuel leaking from the injector which will be fixed when we get out of lockdown.
That said I’ve probably gone and jinxed it and the battery will be dead and it will suffer some catastrophic failure when I try to restart it.
I bought my mx5 when I was toying with buying a new car just for a change but didn’t want to spend a fortune to replace the Mondeo that works perfectly
I have to disagree. I’ve got the 3 cylinder 1.0 125 ecoboost in my Focus and it sounds great! Gives a nice deep burble at idle and sounds throaty under acceleration. It’s also very quiet and smooth when cruising. It doesn’t return the Ford quoted mpg but I’m still averaging over 40 mpg which isn’t too bad. Each to their own of course…!
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I am indifferent to the Mondeos demise , capable car though it was . But three pots -now you are talking - I adore their sound , just like a wannabe 911 . I bought a Focus 125 Ecoboost almost entirely because I was so keen to experience its jewel like little engine. The car was meh , but the little three was sublime, growling away under load and silent at cruise.
On mpg , it took me months to realise how to get over 38-40mpg. The answer was to drive it far harder -once I started changing up at 4500- 5500 rpm as a matter of routine and using the very long legged gears as much as I could (jncluding often using using first in low-ish speed town driving) I got 47-49 mpg .
And I’d have a Yaris GR in a heartbeat if I didn’t love top down motoring so much . And I have thought about it more than once
Higher seating position doesn’t guarantee better visibility.
Someone on this forum got a big suv rammed up the back of his MX-5…
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Parking spaces are the size they need to be, it’s the vehicles which are simply too big. 
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T160, the prettiest bike ever.
I found mine was hard work to ride fast though and I went back to an R75/5, which I found myself naturally riding faster when not trying.
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