Falcon deserved better

[johnydep]

Pretty accurate article. Especially about the smothered export opportunity of the Falcon & Territory. I believed that the case in 2005 & posted about it many times

FORD Australia’s announcement last week that the Falcon’s final fling before it reaches the end of the road in 2016 will carry the X model designation is entirely appropriate. However, given the car’s pathetic sales performance in recent years, a “Y” badge would have been equally apt.

The car that dominated the Australian market during the 1980s is now an irrelevance. In July, Ford sold a mere 493 Falcons, for a year-to-date total of just over 4000. In its heyday, that would have been a couple of weeks’ worth of sales.

If the Falcon hadn’t been on taxpayer-funded life support, production would have ceased 10 years ago.

The car itself deserved a better fate. Throughout the noughties, the BA/BF Falcons were arguably the best large sedans in Ford’s entire global model portfolio. However, as with the similarly capable Territory SUV, Ford Australia was denied export opportunities by its US parent, a stance that, sooner or later, was always going to guarantee its demise as a manufacturer.

So as the once- mighty Falcon heads for that great wreckers yard in the sky, there to sit proudly alongside the Kingswood, Valiant and P76, we can look forward to a final burst of sentimental marketing spin when the FG-X model is launched in November, accompanied by more “collector’s editions” than you can count and some absurd prices being paid by opportunists and ignorant speculators who fail to appreciate the fact a car is only collectable if it’s very highly regarded in the first place.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case with most late-model V8 Falcons, even the venerable GT.
If we’re talking 21st century reality rather than 20th century reputation, only the rare and sporadic R-Spec variants, with decent chassis hardware and wide rubber, are truly worthy of the Falcon GT moniker. The last run of Falcon GTs, 550 cars with the R-Spec package fitted, has already sold out.

Ford Australia is resurrecting the XR8 moniker for a last go-round on the FG-X, with the 335kW 5.0-litre supercharged V8 inherited from the GT. It launches the Falcon towards the horizon with undeniably brutish vigour, but if previous models are an indication it’s also far too much engine for the car. Falcon V8s are extremely nose heavy, usually responding to your entreaties to turn with the same alacrity as the Titanic. Most are also underbraked and undertyred, which further adds to the terror and effort required when cornering.

If you’re after a Falcon to put in the pool room, a model with six cylinders will be a much more rewarding, enjoyable and potentially collectable option.

The XR6 Turbo and its FPV F6 Turbo derivative (the latter in FG specification, from 2008 to the present) are arguably the best sorted performance cars Ford Australia has produced. Their 4.0-litre turbo straight six with 270kW in the XR6 Turbo and 310kW in the F6, is a 100 per cent Ford Australia powerplant (codenamed “Barra”) that redefines the meaning of mid-range grunt and, in the F6, is quicker than the GT V8. Although similarly undertyred and underbraked to the V8s, the Falcon turbo sixes are noticeably lighter, more responsive and better balanced.

Then there’s the rarity factor. You can walk across the road to a Holden dealer and buy a VF Commodore V8, or an HSV derivative if it’s serious muscle you desire, but the Falcon XR6 Turbo, currently priced from $46,235, and F6, from $64,390, are wonderful drives and genuine bespoke examples of Australian automotive engineering, the likes of which we won’t see again.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/exec...-1227039102273