Tony Blews

Artist's Impression, Obviously.

A few years ago, when I actually drove a taxi instead of shouting a lot a those that do the driving, I was sitting behind the wheel of a six year old Mondeo when i noticed that it had nearly 475,000 miles on the clock. I remember thinking that it was roughly the average distance to the moon and back (238,857 miles each way, so 477714 for a return trip – not bad guessing for a taxi driver). For simplicity I’ll round this to 475,000.

Thinking back on it now, how much would it cost to drive “to the moon and back” in a Mondeo, and how long would it take?

Price wise, looking at a factory new Mondeo (Estate – Edge – 2.0 Duratec 145ps – Durashift 5-Speed Manual), you’re looking at £19,445.00, without the various “on the road” extras such as numberplates, VAT and road tax (stuff that should be included in the price, but aren’t).  So let us call it about £25,000 including air fresheners)

(Source: Ford Mondeo Configurator)

A quick search tells us that the car will give an “extra-urban” 37.7.mpg. I think the moon counts as “extra-urban”. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll round this to 40mpg.

(Source: www.thempg.co.uk)

475,000 miles in such a Mondeo would thus require about 11,875 gallons of fuel, or approximately 53,984 litres. How about 54,000 for rounding’s sake?

(Source: Liquid Conversions)

With the 70 litre tank, this would require nearly 772 fill-ups (from empty to full), and at today’s prices (£1.29.9 p/l), £70,200.  I think we’ll call that Seventy Grand, and round things down for a change.

(Sources: Mondeo Estate Handbook and WhatGas – based on the Tesco  by my house at the time of posting).

Of course, I’m not taking such things as wear-and-tear into these calculations, as you can never tell when something will go suddenly wrong, but to be nasty to Ford i’ll assume 100% maintainance cost over the years, to be really pessimistic.

(Source: Running Mondeos hard as taxis with less than careful drivers – original research again, meh).

So, we have

• Original Cost:      £25,000
• Fuel outlay:         £70,000
• Mainainance:       £25,000

So, a total of  £120,000.

Now, how long will that take?

475,000 miles takes a long time to travel, even on a motorway to space which doesn’t have the perpetual Thelwall Viaduct hold ups on it (a future rant about those is planned). So, assuming an average speed of 50mph, the journey would take 9500 hours.

Assuming a stop every 8 hours would be taken to swap drivers (from a crew of 3 – two who could kip in the back of a Mondeo Estate easily) and add fuel, this would take about 10070 hours. Or 446 days. Or about a year and seven months. By which time the Road Tax and Insurance will need renewing. Claiming that you are in space won’t get you out of paying, so stick another thousand into the pot for good measure.

If you estimate fifteen quid (being overly generous) a day for food and toiletries costs per person, this adds £6,690 * 3, or  to the costs. About twenty grand in my book.

So, in total:

• Food and “stuff”:   £20,000
• Car based costs: £ 121,000

So, for less than £145,000 you can drive a Ford Mondeo Estate from here to the Moon and back,  if you and a couple of associates are committed.

That equates to 4,060 times around the M25, or 272 trips from Land’s End to John O’Groats (and back again).

You will lose a hell of a lot of money, over a year and a half of your lives, all your friends, your jobs, your will to live, and probably your sanity. Then you will be Committed.

If, for some reason, you are interested in such  a project, please do let me know. I’d love to be involved in something so utterly bat-shit insane! I’m not joking!

In contrast, the Apollo 11 Mission cost 355 Million dollars in 1969 (which equates to 1.75 billion in todays terms).