The New Ford ‘Sierra’ – Out of the Box

You can safely say that Ford had gold in their hands with the Sierra. The mid-sized car sold like crazy right from its introduction in 1982. The Sierra, which was very streamlined and strikingly designed for its time, was good for between 15,500 and 17,500 units sold annually in the peak years in the Netherlands, 1985 to 1990. Also in 1991 Ford had little reason to complain with more than 13,000 Sierras sold, but now the years really started to count and the ‘new Sierra’ was almost ready to take over.

The successor therefore had big shoes to fill and it was immediately clear that Ford wanted to do this in a completely contemporary way. The ‘new Sierra’ – the Mondeo name hadn’t come on the scene at the time – had curves from head to toe that were typical of 90s cars. Significantly less shocking for its time than the Sierra was when it was introduced. The Mondeo, still referred to as ‘CDW 27’ in 1991, had to appeal to an even wider audience. As we wrote at the time, the newcomer would not only serve the European market. Hence, as it turned out later, the name Mondeo. A reference to the fact that this was a ‘whole world’ car.

Ford Mondeo

One of the biggest changes compared to the Sierra, however, was not immediately apparent to the Mondeo: it got front-wheel drive. We also knew that in 1991, just like the fact that a V6 would also be available, which Ford worked on together with Porsche. That Duratec V6 would come with a capacity of 2.0 liters and 2.5 liters, we thought at the time, later it would turn out that only the 2.5 came to the Mondeo.

That wasn’t the only thing we were slightly off. For example, we wrote that the ‘new Sierra’ would come on the market as a sedan, hatchback, station wagon and coupe. The latter never came, at least, if we don’t include the much later Ford Cougar that shared a lot of technology with the first Mondeo. It is also striking that we wrote that Ford’s new mid-sized car would come on the market as a sedan immediately from its introduction, unlike the Sierra, because Ford ‘learned from the mistake of not supplying a sedan version of it initially’. We had clearly not yet fully foreseen that the sedan would eventually fall out of favor.

In 1993 the time had come and Ford presented the Mondeo. The large shoes of the Sierra were then partly filled, the Mondeo approached the sales figures of its predecessor here in the Netherlands. Still, it didn’t get quite as stunned as the Sierra. In its peak year, 1996, Ford sold 14,934 here, still less than the Sierra averaged for years. The first generation Mondeo was the most successful in the Netherlands. To illustrate: 8,041 units of the first Mondeo were sold in the worst year, still more than have been sold of the entire current generation.