Ford dropped a bombshell in 2018 when it announced plans to kill every passenger car in its US model lineup apart from the Mustang, allowing it to focus on crossovers and SUVs. While the Ford Fusion sedan, a rebadged version of Europe's Mondeo, was discontinued in the US last year and will be reborn as a crossover, the Ford Mondeo family sedan has remained on sale in Europe. But not for much longer.

After 27 years, the Ford Mondeo is ending production at the end of March 2022. It first went on sale in 1993 to replace the Sierra and lasted five generations. Since then, Ford has shipped over five million Mondeos in Europe. It first arrived in the US in 1995, when it was sold as the Ford Contour and the Mercury Mystique.

However, sales of the Mondeo have declined over the years as buyers continue to favor SUVs and crossovers. In 2020, Ford sold just 2,400 units of the Mondeo in the UK, compared to 86,000 during its peak year in 2001.

During the height of its popularity, the Ford Mondeo even made a brief cameo in the 2006 James Bond film 'Casino Royale' in an egregious form of product placement to promote the launch of the third-generation model. It even has some racing pedigree, having competed in the British Touring Car Championship between 1993 and 2000. Ford says the Mondeo is being discontinued because of "changing customer preference,"

In 2020, 39 percent of all Ford models sold in the UK were SUVs and crossovers. The demise of the Mondeo means that Ford no longer offers a mid-size sedan in the UK or Europe, with the Fiesta and Focus hatchbacks representing the Blue Oval automaker's core passenger car lineup outside of the US.

Ford isn't planning to replace the Mondeo, either, and will continue to push the Puma and Kuga crossovers and the Explorer PHEV in Europe. This doesn't mean Ford is completely abandoning the sedan segment, however, as the Blue Oval automaker still sells the Focus sedan, Escort, Taurus, and Mondeo in China, where there's still a high demand for sedans.