IT'S the car which has helped to define modern Britain and now the Ford Mondeo is turning 20 with a flourish.

Two new models are joining the line up and one is the cheapest Mondeo for almost a decade.

The other is a top grade executive car with so much kit onboard that a similar specification German rival would cost at least £10,000 more.

With an all new Mondeo still more than a year away Ford is keeping its flagship bang up to date in the style that has seen almost 1.4 million Mondeos sold in the UK since 1993.

The latest additions, available as either hatchbacks or estates, mean that a new Mondeo can be had for less than £16,000 and at the moment only the Skoda Octavia comes close in the family car bracket.

Aimed at private buyers the Mondeo Graphite is priced from £15,995 for a 1.6-litre petrol version and £18,195 for a similar sized diesel which with emissions of 112g/km is good for more than 60 to the gallon and costs just £30 a year to tax - the same as many a supermini.

Similar tax advantages are also a feature of the new Mondeo Titanium X Business Edition which is fitted with the same diesel engine bringing company car tax liability down to 17 per cent.

Even the more powerful two-litre diesel versions with either 140 or 163ps available can now average a claimed 57.7mpg and their CO2 output of 119g/km puts them in the same tax bracket for private buyers while company car tax rises by one per cent.

Automatic versions are not quite as clean and are rated at 149g/km which is equivalent to 50.4mpg and attract a tax banding of 24 per cent.

For Mondeo Man - the term coined by Tony Blair as the aspirational voter New Labour needed to target in the 1997 General Election - his favourite model has never been so competitive.

The new Business Edition in Titanium X trim costs from £21,995 and has everything the company car driver needs including touchscreen navigation, hands free Bluetooth phone connectivity, leather trim and air conditioning.

The range topping two-litre diesel automatic is priced from £25,405 and while not as economical as the six speed manual we managed to achieve more than 43 to the gallon on a drive through suburbia into the countryside.

On the road the Mondeo has always enjoyed a reputation for sweet handling and the latest versions are no exception.

This was the higher powered diesel which has plenty of get up and go resulting in 0 to 60 acceleration of less than 9.5 seconds and a top speed of 134mph.

The drive is out of the top drawer and inside it is plush and sophisticated. The car we tried had £3,500 worth of options fitted which included automatic cruise control, blind spot monitors and lane departure warning devices yet even so it tipped the scales at a price well below that of a similar specification BMW or Audi.

The lower powered 1.6-litre diesel is equally impressive. It's available only as a six speed manual priced from £23,195 and while it may have only 115ps on tap, in everyday running it felt little different to the larger version - and it returned close on 57 to the gallon over a similar route.

Ford hit a rich vein when it introduced the Mondeo Business Edition last year in mid-grade Zetec trim and the upgrade to Titanium X specification makes it the best value exec mobile on the market.

The Mondeo has always been a trailblazer - it was Ford's first ‘world car' and the first to come with a driver's airbag as standard - and over the years it has stayed ahead of the game bringing big car technology such as radar controlled cruise control and look round corner headlamps to the masses.

Perhaps more important in these days of soaring fuel costs are the latest engines which Ford builds in Britain - diesels at Dagenham in Essex and petrols at Bridgend in Wales.

Back in 1993 the Mondeo diesel could average just 36mpg - the latest versions are almost twice as fuel efficient.

The next generation of the Mondeo - the fourth - will have Ford's award winning three cylinder one-litre EcoBoost petrol engine in the mix and that promises something special for the car's 21.