A better ride from Ford

Ford engineers claim to have made a major breakthrough with the launch of an active suspension system on the new Ford Mondeo.

Called Interactive Vehicle Dynamic Control (IVDC), the system offers sports, comfort and regular suspension settings and eliminates the trade off engineers have to make between ride and handling with conventional suspension set-ups. Once selected, the settings determine how the suspension reacts, providing rapid, imperceptible adjustments in line with the car's behaviour and prevailing road conditions.

Broadly, the firmer sports setting will optimise the car's responses on winding B-roads while the comfort setting would be for a long distance motorway journey.

Once the choice is made, the active suspension technology adjusts the car's dampers more than 10 times a second to provide the best possible handling characteristics, by matching the driver's selection with road conditions and the demands being made by the driver in terms of acceleration, braking, cornering and speed. This provides more precise responses than the fixed settings of a conventional suspension system.