It's dark, mysterious and quite unlike any other Mondeo you will ever see. Kartik Ganesh falls for this seductive one-night stand
Photography by Dhaval Dhairyawan

By any standards, the Mondeo isn't the most common of cars on our roads. Sad really, since it's one of the more involving cars to drive and you don't really have to break a giant pink pig to get yourself one. Sure enough, any motoring enthusiast or auto-scribe worth his salt (or scotch) will tell you that saloon from the Blue Oval is indeed a fine handling car packed with zest which can put a Subway sandwich-sized smile across your face – all the time. But what if an outsized smile just doesn't cut it? What if you want to shock and scare a few lonely souls in the wee hours of morning? Or simply seduce them with some evil, mysterious charm? You need to bring on Black Magic then.

It started out as just another used Mondeo about a year ago, but its owner had ideas for the once understated
exec-saloon. So off the car went to KSMotorsport for some pretty serious engine work to give it an aggression that few cars here can equal.
But let's get one thing straight, it's not a street racer – it's simply too heavy for that to start with. So you're not going to get ridiculously quick quarter-mile times on the car, especially if you run against a bunch of lightweight and potent Japanese machinery. The car was envisaged as a meaner and quicker Mondeo with bucket-loads of shock value to those who see it on the street. And that's exactly what it is. Mistake it for a tuned-Honda beater, and you'll be the one in for a shock!
The reason this car is special is because no one in India has been mad enough to put a Mondeo through such a transformation. For one, availability of parts for just the standard car is an issue; forget about aftermarket tuning parts and kits! And not too many people have the heart to get one under the knife. So what even if the car was about three years old and was bought for well under rupees nine lakh, everyone has a budget to stick to.
But come under the scalpel it did. The first thing KSMotorsport decided was to leave most of the engine stock and didn't even give it a ported head. This makes engine maintenance a whole lot easier since parts can be sourced from virtually any Ford dealer in the country. That said, a custom decompression head gasket, courtesy British Machine Shop in ol' Blighty, was fitted and the car was readied for it's next big performance modification.
A turbo. The Garrett GT-32 turbo fitted to this car has been set-up for only 8psi of boost and rightly so; what with those two bottles of NOS stuffed in the boot! But 8psi is quite a bit and when the turbo spools up, it's quite unlike any Mondeo you've driven – ever. You get shoved into the seat and suddenly the streetlights become a rapid yellow streak as the car cuts through the lonely city roads in the wee hours of morning. And when you lift off, the loud but thoroughly intoxicating snort and hiss from the Turbo XS blow-off valve make sleeping dogs scurry for cover.
Also contributing to all the performance, no points for guessing, is a K&N typhoon-type induction pipe and filter and Iridium plugs for potent sparks fed by a robust MSD ignition system. The original fuel injectors have been swapped for a high-

performance set from RC Engineering, USA. The intimidating looking intercooler hiding behind the front bumper mesh is from GP and is almost as good as the far more expensive HKS kit. And to reduce air-inlet temperature Black Magic has a Carbon Dioxide or Cryogenic cooling system from DEI – with the CO2 bottle nestling between the front seats – looks quite intimidating to say the least! But not as scary as the twin-bottles of NOS which are hang like a couple of bombs in the boot. The NOS is a fairly straightforward s

ingle nozzle set-up but runs through a nitrous controller, so you can choose your shots depending on what you'd like to do. Basically the control has three modes; leave-in-dust, back-to-the-future-88mph
or warp-speed.
The transmission end of the car is stock including the clutch, which is now being replaced to a heavy duty one, to handle the additional grunt. The brakes and suspension on the car are stock, since budgets didn't allow for better a suspension setup from Tien which would have cost an additional Rs 1 lakh to the Rs 4 lakh already spent on the engine and performance mods. The 17-inch multi-spoke alloys add to the overall sinewy look the car has, and runs very potent set of shoes – 235/45 Goodyear Eagle F1s. But how much more potent really is this car over a stock Mondeo, which belts out a respectable 143bhp from its 1999cc mill?
Well, a safe estimate is a little over ten percent, which granted, doesn't sound like a helluva lot; but it will return an excellent sub-ten second 100kph time. At the same it won’t better a 17 second quarter-mile run. And the only reason it isn't as quick as it ought to be is because it has a monster of an audio timeinstalled which adds a few hundred kilos to the already heavy Mondeo.

As if to compensate for the weight penalty, a custom made FRP bonnet with scoops and intakes dominates the front of the car along with the sawed off look bumper which does little to protect or hide the innards with its giant meshed air-scoops. But this is really what lends so much character to the car – the front with the exposed intercooler almost makes the car seem like its gritting its teeth at you in anger. But the finish on the bonnet does leave a lot to be desired and isn't nearly as good as the rest of the car. The rear is just a little less aggressive looking than the front end, but spells brute force; thanks to the cars custom exhaust system. Huge barrels stick out from the rear bumper, under each tail-lamp and look threatening enough to scare the odd bystander. It gets even better when you crank the engine and dab the gas pedal. A deep, if a tad gruff bark, fills the air...
The insides are just as black and dark as the outside. Cosset yourself in the supremely comfortable leather bucket seats and take a look at the neat Momo steering, gear shifter, pedals and mats. Get used to looking at an entire stack of Autometers that tell you everything you need to know about the engine! Then flick the key. The stack of instruments and Autometers light up, do a pre-flight check and settle down for you to crank the beast. While it's idling and the turbo is warming up nicely, try the meaty audio kit. With an Alpine head unit and a (black!) iPod supplying the tunes to incredibly accurate and potent MBQuart drivers powered by meaty Rockford Punch amps in the boot, you'll feel every note thumping through your blood. Pricey at about Rs 7 lakh on the audio install but then quality never did come cheap.
Once you're done with checking out the tunes, lower the system volume, blip the throttle to hear the exhausts growl, drop the seemingly heavy clutch and hold on as the car shoves you into the seat through first and second. The whistle of the turbo, the shove into the seat, the bark of the exhaust, the hiss of the blow-off valve, and the sheer aura of aggression – it's all thoroughly intoxicating. Once you've had a bite of the sinful apple, you know you want the whole apple for yourself. And true to Blue Oval tradition “you can have it in any colour you want, as long as it's black.”

Thanks to Karan @ KSMotorsport. Mail karanshah@hathway.com for your own piece of magic.