If the Ford Mondeo is brilliant nobody will notice

HERE'S a bit of a motoring prediction for 2013. If Ford's new Mondeo is any good not one of you will bat an eyelid.

Which is a shame, because I reckon chances are it will be. This year the Mondeo celebrates its 20th anniversary - no really, it has been around that long - but take a look at the sharp end of the car sales charts and it's notable only by its absence. The best selling saloon in Britain is the BMW 3 Series.

This says more about the people who buy cars than it does about the cars themselves. When the Mondeo came out petrol cost 43p a litre and the sort of souls you'd see driving them hadn't bought them; they were given them by their fleet managers, which I think partly explained why the Mondeo always got such a kicking in the customer satisfaction surveys. If you buy a car privately you cherish it because you chose it carefully and paid for it with your own money; if it's a repmobile you're not going to be as bothered. Unless it breaks, in which case you - and your bosses - will be furious.

I also reckon, though I'm happy to be proven otherwise, that there's never been a bad Mondeo. Sure, there'll have been an iffy special edition or two in the car's 20 year history and obviously some are better than others but I've always thought the basic package - sensible saloon practicality and Ford value for money mixed with a dash of driving fun - has a certain something. I'll let you into a little secret; everyone I know who really knows their stuff on cars likes the Mondeo.

These days, though, the Mondeo and its ilk are an an endangered breed, and it's not just the £1.30 litre a petrol prices pushing the few remaining reps into family hatches instead. Mondeo Man these days is buying his own car with his own money, and if he isn't ploughing his hard earned into an infinitely trendier Nissan Qashqai than he's got the choice of the BMW 3 Series or the Ford Mondeo. I'll say that again; BMW or Ford. Even if the new Mondeo looks like an Aston Martin Rapide that shrank in the wash - which, amazingly, it does - it doesn't stand a chance.

Keen to find out what all the fuss is about, I've driven the new 3 Series and would like to tell you that it's rubbish and that you should buy a Mondeo instead. Only I can't, because it's brilliant.

Battling the Welsh weather? Choose your weapon...

A FAST Ford, a classic Mini, a regal old Rover and a vivacious Italian supermini. Given the choice and a wet weekend in the wilds of Wales, which would you take?

It's not a question you've ever needed to answer before but - in the noble interests of Life On Cars research - a few friends and I have ventured over the border and battled with flash flooding, high winds and twisty roads strewn with rocks and tree branches, so you won't have to. Oh, and sampled a few of the best roads in Britain while we were at it.

Our mission for the weekend was to head to Llandudno to meet up with an annual parade of old Minis which meet up on the town's promenade for a special display, but given only one of our party was actually in one we decided to give the official route a miss and head over the mountains and through the valleys. If you fancy giving it a go yourself tap some of the following phrases into your computer; Horseshoe Pass, Evo Triangle, Llanberis Pass, accident recovery.

I've always enjoyed a good road as much as a good car, making the route we'd chosen a sort of petrolhead's paradise; twisty, challenging, and blessed with stunning scenery instead of traffic. Thanks to the miracle of Google Street View you can even check out these captivating roads long before you reach them.

The four machines we'd brought along, I wager, were all brilliant in their own particular way and yet none were really perfect either for the job of providing hours of fun and frolics on narrow, twisty lanes while surviving torrential rain and battering gales.

The Ford Mondeo ST Estate, for instance, was the fastest and comfiest, but more than once it struggled to get round some of the tighter bends on account of it being so big. The Fiat Punto a friend had brought along and the Rover 214 I was travelling in could, but you always got the sense they were designed for stages smaller than the testing terrain of a really, really challenging road in the middle of nowhere.

In fact, the one car I was coveting the entire trip was the Mini in my mirrors, because having owned one I know its pin-sharp steering and bouncy suspension would easily have made up for the shortfall in the engine department. Well, I coveted it right up until it refused to start the following morning, helping me to remember that they don't make 'em like they used to. They make 'em better.

The answer is that doesn't matter which of our unlikely foursome you take to the thrilling mountain passes in this captivating corner of Wales. You'll be enjoying yourself so much, it won't matter.