Rear-seat room is particularly impressive: In fact, there's more rear legroom (41.9 inches) than front legroom (41.2 inches). That rear-seat legroom is enhanced because the front seats are mounted above the rear floor, leaving room for your feet underneath.
We spent time in the driver's and front passenger's seats as well as the back seats and found all of them comfortable and supportive even after several hours in the car. All seats feature what Ford calls a command view of the road, with seat-bottom cushions that are some four inches higher than those of a typical mid-sized sedan. The front seats are mounted on a Volvo-devised cross-body beam that runs from the bottom of the B-pillar (the post between the front and rear doors) that adds strength to the car's shell and helps provide protection in the event of a side impact.
Each of the four doors has a beverage holder, and additional cup holders are located in the center console between the front seats with two more in the center console that folds down from the back of the back middle seat. The dashboard has a covered storage compartment in its top center section. The dashboard comes in silver or wood-grain trim with metal used for the door releases and around the base and top of the gear shift lever.
We found the switchgear well designed and easy to use. Audio controls are mounted at the top of the center stack with climate controls beneath.
The steeply raked windshield can reflect glare off the top of the dashboard, however, something we noticed with the tan-colored Pebble interior. (Shale and Black interiors are also available.) Also, a driver wearing sunglasses can have trouble reading the darkly colored gauges in the SE and SEL models. The Limited light-faced gauges are easier to read.
The Five Hundred has a big trunk (21.2 cubic feet) that can hold eight sets of golf clubs. The rear seatbacks fold forward to provide enlarged luggage space, and the front passenger's seat (on SEL and Limited versions) folds down to provide space for a 10-foot long ladder or other object to fit inside the Five Hundred with the trunk lid closed, a neat trick for a sedan.
