ford in past few years have seriously impressed me, and you only have to test drive the opposition, to realise why there are so many new fiesta and Focus's on the road, personally think that when they bought volvo, robbed it of the build quality people expected, and brought ford product up a notch, sharing the platforms.
even the latest mondeo's are a decent product IMHO
Hopefully Volvo seem to be recovering a bit with the V60 and other new models under chinese ownership (the polestar V60 T6 is a fantastic car to drive, although is best part of 50k)