Video: Ford Mondeo - 20 years today

The Ford Mondeo is celebrating its 20th anniversary and more than 4.5 million sales in Europe, including 1,400,000 in the UK. To mark the occasion, the company has released a new video with voiceover by Ray Winstone.

The Mondeo was introduced in 1993 following a five-year, £3bn development programme and was named Car of the Year in 1994. The first generation car might have looked conservative, but it set was underpinned by an all-new suspension set-up, which blessed it with class-leading levels of ride, handling and steering.

It also was fitted with up-to-the-minute technology - for the time -  including a standard driver’s airbag, an optional passenger airbag and offered traction control, adaptive damping, Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) and optional four-wheel drive. In 1996, a revised, restyled and lighter weight Mondeo delivered optional side airbags, which were standardised two years later together with four-channel ABS.

It was so popular it even became part of the English language, when Tony Blair coined the phrase 'Mondeo Man' to define a new voting class in the early part of the last decade.

• Comment: Twenty years young - is the Mondeo a classic?
• Ford Mondeo design story (on AROnline)