Best Falcon Editorial Ever

[malazn mafia]

Ford Falcon: A powerful and extremely cheap Australian rear wheel drive sedan with
a choice of a bulletproof 4 litre straight six and 5.4 litre V8.

Holden fans hate them because they have always been faster and more reliable than the Commodore. The current turbo straight six Falcon will do the quarter mile in low 13's while the Commodore V6 can hardly get out of it's own way.

The Falcon was first built in 1960 based on the Ford Mustang. In 1967 the Falcon GT was released with the 289 Mustang V8 and went on to dominate racing in Australia reaching a height in 1971 with the release of the Ford Falcon GTHO Phase3 which was the fastest four door vehicle in the world and embarassed Holdens much smaller and lighter Toranas.

During the 70's the next generation of Falcons now available with a hardtop and the 250ci six that would become legendary later continued to dominate Holden especially with the locally built Cleveland V8 which urinated all over the Holden 308 V8.

In the 80's the fourth generation Falcon was released with a much lighter and better handling body and thankfully was still rear wheel drive though Ford US had tried to push them to become front wheel drive. Sadly the Cleveland V8 was dropped in 1982 to concentrate on the 250ci. six. The 250ci was heavily reworked now with a alloy crossflow head designed by Honda. The Falcon then went on to nearly send Holden broke as while Holden had gone cheap and simply made their Commodore smaller and kept the pollution gear choked engines without updating them Ford actually bothered investing in their cars so there became the situation in 1984 that the Falcon was bigger, faster, better handling AND more fuel efficient than the Commodore. Holden was so embarassed that they had to go begging to Nissan to use their Skyline RB30 in the Commodore so they could catch up to the Falcon.

In 1988 the fourth generation Falcon was released with this generation came the return of the V8 in an imported 5 litre Windsor from America, the upgrade of the straight six to overhead cam and a partnership with Tickford which would begin the legend of the XR6.

The XR6 was the creation of the hot six Falcon with greatly improved handling and a Tickford engineering head on the trusty Falcon straight six that offered an impressive 161kw in 1991 which was embarassingly only 4kw short of the V8. During the fourth generation Holden began to close the gap by again making the car large again and swapping the peaky Nissan six for the torquey 3.8L Buick V6. Knowing the dated Buick V6 could never match the hi tech OHC 4 litre Falcon six Holden matched the performance of the Falcon bysacrificing handling so as to make their car some 200 kilos lighter than the Falcon.

In 1998 the disasterous fifth generation AU Falcon was released. Ford North America had been pressuring Australia to scrap the Falcon and replace it with their crappy Taurus despite the fact the Falcon was extremely profitable and the Taurus was a market disaster in Australia being smaller, slower and front wheel drive. Ford Australia refused to kill the Falcon and Ford North America grudgingly accepted on the condition that they get to design the styling of the new Falcon. So the new Falcon got ****** "edge" styling. Despite the fifth generation Falcon being extremely well engineered with superb handling and a new upgraded OHC 4 litre six with variable cam timing producing an impressive 172kw especially considering Holdens SUPERCHARGED V6 produced 2kw less the styling repulsed buyers. Add to that a disasterous campaign at Bathurst at the continued use of the tired old 5 litre Windsor while Holden had gone to the imported Chevrolet 5.7 V8 and then something needed to be done quickly.

So in 2003 the brilliant sixth generation Falcon was released which so leapfrogged the Commodore that only now they are starting to catch up. The crappy ****** "edge" styling was kicked for a return to traditional muscular styling. The Windsor V8 was retird for the new BOSS V8. The Modular block is imported from America and combined with local components including a locally designed and built DOHC to produce an impressive 302kw from a 5.4L V8 compared to a peak of 250kw with a 5.6L Windsor Stroker V8 in the last generation Falcon. The biggest news though was the rise of the XR6 to the king of the Falcon range. The SOHC 4 litre six was heavily updated and now was DOHC with DIVCT in base model form giving an impressive 190kw compared to Holdens top of the line sport supercharged V6 which only put out 180kw with their base model putting out a laughable 154kw. Ford also introduced the XR6 Turbo and FPV Typhoon with a garett turbocharger and intercooler bolted to the new straight six. The FPV Typhoon easily showed 300kw+ during development but boost was wound back significantly to only 6psi so as not to embarass the V8 Falcons but still the Typhoon produces 270kw and an amazing 550nm of torque between 2000 and 5000rpm. Not only has the turbo Falcon put V8's to shame but has utterly obliterated the ricer scene. For 20 grand you can pick up a second hand XR6 Turbo and for 10 grand it will be running 11 second times. Already development ha shown 1000hp Turbo Falcons.

In 2008 the new Falcon is coming and seeing as the current Falcon is still competitive with the brand new Commodore it is set to bury Holden and the ricer boys.

Stumbled across this on Google for Ford Falcon. A good read and humorous, with a lot of it actually being factual

[MethodX]

Interesting, but a tad biased.

[mcnews]

Written by a 12 year old with an F6 driving father :-)

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by mcnews

Written by a 12 year old with an F6 driving father :-)

So that makes 'dad' somewhere between 32 - 42 maybe - bloody hoons

[CobraJet351]

The AU us the best falcon ever. Looks are in the eye of the beholder but as a functioning vehicle, AU is king.

[jaydee]

Originally Posted by CobraJet351

The AU us the best falcon ever. Looks are in the eye of the beholder but as a functioning vehicle, AU is king.

Unless you're blind. The only Au I liked the look of was the XR models.

[FERG_51]

Ha ha sounds like something id write except I wouldn't be as hard on the AU.

[tranquilized]

Got their generations all confused - 1988 saw the fourth generation released... again?? So the author lost count there as they had previously wrote the 4th gen was released in the 80's, which I presume is referring to the XD which was actually 1979. AU was gen 6 not 5, and the BA was not a new generation model. And the XK wasn't based on the Mustang - the Mustang was based on the XK. And I could go on, but I won't as it's an entertaining read regardless.

[Silver']

AU's **** on BA's (full credit to the XR turbo engine though) but the rest is pretty much spot on.

[Sprintey]

Haha that was a bit of a laugh, some truth.

There was this article, "Fords that could save Ford now," written about the same time from the perspective of an American sampling the Aussie muscle and wondering why Ford NA didn't have such amazing RWD cars.

Good times

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...-save-ford-now

[Blue Roo]

Could this be written by the Hulk? lol!

[superyob]

'The Falcon was first built in 1960 based on the Ford Mustang'

Interesting...

[Gothefalcon]

Originally Posted by superyob

'The Falcon was first built in 1960 based on the Ford Mustang'

Interesting...

Yes... very clever of Ford's engineers to base the first generation of the Falcon on a car that was yet to be conceived from the second generation platform

[CobraJet351]

Unless you're blind. The only Au I liked the look of was the XR models.

Read my post again and notice how I wrote 'looks are in the eye of the beholder'. What that means (since you clearly don't know) is looks are based on individual preference. Most people don't like it, but some do.

In my opinion the T-Series look awesome and the P250 is the nicest ford ute yet. My opinion, not fact.

[Express]

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

The Falcon was first built in 1960 based on the Ford Mustang.

They must have had a crystal ball or a time machine.

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

In 2008 the new Falcon is coming and seeing as the current Falcon is still competitive with the brand new Commodore it is set to bury Holden and the ricer boys.

They didn't see what was coming here though.

[nstg8a]

Lol early school piece by Callum maybe?

[FalconXV]

What about this one?
http://performancedrive.com.au/edito...-tribute-1715/

I was a strange child, more fascinated by mechanical items than sports or social activities. This extended to our family car, though to be fair, our family car was pretty sweet, even if nobody knew it back then.

1982 Ford XE Falcon

It was a vanilla yellow 1983 Ford Falcon GL sedan nicknamed ‘Falcy’. An XE, with a Super-slurping 3.3-litre tied to a four-speed manual. With its sad looking face and distinctive whining noise, it was more than a conveyance to me; it was alive. Even my mother cried when we traded it in. This endearing character kick-started a rich intrigue for all things automotive, with an intrinsic hunger of every fact and figure available to me.

My father often brought home Ford and Holden station wagon company cars, much to my delight, and when I first eyeballed an EF XR6 from the school bus, I freaked out. The menacing and mysterious EL GT occupied some space on my bedroom wall.

The first time I attended a motor show, I was positively dazzled by the golden 1998 EL Predator concept – possibly the most exotic-looking Falcon ever.

When the AU came out, I was 10 years old, and therefore impervious to the shock and controversy it generated to adults. What I saw was an unusual, imaginative-looking car, and enjoyed its triangles and ovals. The XRs in particular, with their H.R Geiger-inspired faces and bi-plane rear spoilers were just awesome. Getting to see them made in person at the Broadmeadows factory in 2000, I felt like Charlie in the chocolate factory.

Wheels magazine’s inaugural Young Designer of the Year competition, in which the goal was to design a Falcon for 2010, captured my imagination and I even sent in an entry. (By this stage I was drawing cars and even had my own model line). The winner, Nick Hogios, went on to design the BA XR front end, before moving on to Toyota Style Australia.

My first viewing of Bathurst was the 1-2 victory of 1998, with a l-o-n-g drought after that. Ford didn’t have the widespread fanship of Holden, and I copped heaps of flak for being a Ford fan. Little did I know at the time, this was due to Ford axing the V8 and withdrawing from racing in the 1980s, but that lent it an underdog status which, to me, is a genuinely Australian virtue.

Thankfully, reprieve came with the 2002 BA, both on the track and in the showroom. The BA was leaps and bounds ahead of the AU and VY Commodore of the day, with the XR6 Turbo becoming a new cult car. It was here, at the helm of Geoff Polites, Ford finally gave Holden an existential fright again.

Mitchell Jones-XE Falcon

When the time came to buy my first car, I approached it with an open mind, but as soon as I clocked on to a mint XF Ghia in a small used car lot, all rationality went out the window.

I certainly didn’t do that car justice, but it re-inforced my loyalty to Falcon. I managed to sell a few during another life as a car salesman, and even went to a meeting which included David Katic, the head of Ford marketing in 2012, where I tried to persuade him that a sports-themed Ecoboost Falcon was a good idea (which obviously fell on deaf ears).

On May 23, 2013, when the closure and cessation of Falcon and Territory production was announced, I was absolutely shattered. How can a machine elicit a reaction of human-like almost-grief?

The truth is, Falcon is more than a car to many Australians. It’s a part of our scenery and culture, and will remain so for some time before slowly diminishing into obscurity. To enthusiasts, modifiers, taxi passengers, it’s part of their lives. It has inspired the imaginations of many people, just as it did mine.

It is also a living, breathing expression of the hard work and passion from the factory workers who assemble it, the designers and engineers who develop it. Over 6 million examples are scattered throughout our landscape, in various states of vibrancy and decomposition.

That some versions have gone under the hammer for almost a million dollars is a testament to its broad-ranging appeal and desirability. The car will be missed due to its simplicity, comfort, ease-of-maintenance, abundance of parts, effortless power, and performance.

It is also prescient that as the world enters an exciting new chapter of electrification and autonomous driving, with even Apple tipped to launch a car before the end of the decade, Australia no longer has an industry to participate. Falcon may have adapted to this new paradigm but in the end it was head office in Dearborn, USA, that deliberately stifled it.

Its reluctance to integrate it into Ford’s global portfolio may cost them here, and it has arguably robbed them of some opportunities. The straight-six engine of the Falcon is arguably superior to the Duratec V6 available in the Mustang and F-150. A straight-six powered Mustang would be historically relevant to the original, while the torquey 4.0-litre Barra would have won many friends in the F-series truck, if it had the chance. As Lincoln launches a new Continental, we can’t help but think they had access to a rear-drive, inline six platform over a decade ago.

Just as Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz are tipped to revert back to straight sixes, Ford is shooting a real gem of an engine in the head.

But there is too much to be excited about to be butthurt. There’s a plethora of great and interesting cars in the pipeline and on sale today, and it was Falcon which opened me up to that world, so thanks, Falcon.

Have you got a Falcon story? Feel free to share it with us below.