US and their view of Aus Fords

[ltd]

Hi guys, don't know if this has been done before but a US car show has featured the ford GT R spec and has basically rubbished the american cars compared to ours. The segment is only short but confirms what most of the USA ford fans have told us. The black GT looks smoking hot too, just enough to rile our mates across the pond. Also reaffirms speculation that ford USA said they will be building cars on an aussie designed platform.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxmzkc1DqgA

[csv8]

Features Review: 2006 Ford Falcon FPV GT Boss 290, Falcon XR6 Turbo, Focus ST, and Territory Ghia AWD - Features

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Fords that could save Ford now, if they were for sale in North America.
BY RAY HUTTON AND AARON ROBINSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY EASTON CHANG and MIKE VALENTE June 2006

For an American automaker, selling a car in the U.S. that was designed for overseas markets is what is known in football as the gadget play. It’s the fumblerooski, the Statue of Liberty, the off-the-wall trick call that is highly risky, likely to end in disaster, but may just catch the competition with its drawers dropped. Most times it has been tried — such as in 1984 with the European Ford XR4Ti (it was called a Merkur here) and in 2003 with the Australian-built Pontiac GTO — the results reflected the odds against that play.

Then there was Toyota’s Bb, a Japanese-market oldster that tapped a whole new fan base when it reappeared in America as the Scion xB in 2003. GM is about to call its own gadget play by stocking Saturn’s shelves with European Opels. We think a little savoir-vivre is just what Saturn needs.

Ford needs something, too. Badly. Bribing America to buy Fords lost the House of Henry $1.6 billion in 2005 even as market share continued to wither. Ford subsequently said it would padlock 14 factories and pink-slip 30,000 workers, gutting one-quarter of its carmaking capacity. In March, a Connecticut dealership that sold Fords for 48 years announced it will switch to Lexus.

Click here to find out more!

We went across the oceans east and west to sniff out Ford’s foreign lineup. In distant lands we found a few gems that might just catch everyone by surprise and get Ford a needed touchdown, if it only has the gumption to call the play.

Would you visit a Ford dealer if it sold a budget BMW that hosted five adults and their airport luggage, laid rubber with the rear tires and rode gently on all four, turned sharply into corners and drifted its tail coming out, gave you the choice of a six-speed manual or German-designed six-speed automatic, and came in all the colors of the rainbow and a few found only in a toxic dump?

To borrow an Aussie phrase, we bet the Ford Falcon would stick out in America like dogs’ balls. And that’s a good thing.

0606_saveford_all4garage.jpgEnduring the 15-hour flight to Melbourne is like jumping into America’s parallel reality. In Melbourne — or “Mel-boring” to Sydneysiders — the suburbs of red-brick cottages on one-third-acre lots have the ambience of Anytown, U.S.A. Australians drive their kids to school, shop in fluorescent-lit supermarkets, keep the A/C on high, and eat too much partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. If we’re going to find America’s next sweetheart car, this is the place.

We’re headed into the grassy flatlands southwest of Melbourne — in fact, to some of the very locations where the Australian cops-versus-bikers flick Mad Max launched Mel Gibson’s career and committed some of filmography’s best vehicle carnage to celluloid — in two versions of Ford’s 2006 Falcon. The XR6 Turbo and the V-8–powered FPV GT are the top tire smokers of this big, lovable lineup of rear-drive family sedans (and wagons and “utes,” for the platform is used in all three).

They have supportive buckets providing heaps of head- and legroom, well-executed interiors lined in matte-finish soft plastics and precision-guided buttons, and sizzling jolts of power headed to the rear where jolting power belongs. Somehow, Australia has become the place to find the quintessential American muscle sedan.

0606_saveford_allonbridge.jpgThe Falcon has always swung by a shoestring. In a tiny market of about one million new cars per year, Ford sold 53,080 Falcons last year, a fragile number that has somehow weathered a flood of imports and a few colossal mistakes. Many Australians never forgave Ford for axing the optional V-8 in 1983 (it came back in 1991). A disastrous 1998 redesign that Aussies dubbed the “cockroach” followed Ford’s introduction of the Taurus to Australia — one of several failed attempts to replace the Falcon with a U.S.- or European-sourced car. Buyers, including most police agencies, left for GM’s Holden in droves.

0606_saveford_falcon_xr6.jpgInstead of folding the Falcon, Ford retooled it. Athletic proportions and a pugnacious face returned some Aussie swagger to the Falcon in 2004. The 2006 Falcon BF (so designated after the local habit of assigning new models a two-letter code name) also comes with a wide choice of performance upgrades and a fresh palate of blazing colors. This year, uplevel Falcons also shed their old four-speed automatics for a new ZF 6HP26 six-speed — a state-of-the-art autobox fitted to BMWs and to a seven-seat sport-utility called the Ford Territory, launched into the Australian market on the Falcon platform in 2005.

[WindsorXR]

I work at ford and we have tried numerous times to get America to let us export to them,but they are refusing.we have had Mustangs here and they don't come anywhere near as comfy and well sound packaged as our Falcon.America does like it though but i think it would drive some sales away from their vehicles.
It would be great for them to help us out and let us do it.We need the sales at the moment.

[WindsorXR]

ps-If i've gone over anything in the post before me again.I didn't read it coz it was long.hehehe!! So be gentle

[ltd]

Originally Posted by WhatsMyUserName

I work at ford and we have tried numerous times to get America to let us export to them,but they are refusing.we have had Mustangs here and they don't come anywhere near as comfy and well sound packaged as our Falcon.America does like it though but i think it would drive some sales away from their vehicles.
It would be great for them to help us out and let us do it.We need the sales at the moment.

Well Ford USA must love red, because that's all their finances have been in for the last few years. I guess in a way it's a poisoned chalice, because if they exported from here then it would take away sales of the american rubbish and cost jobs in the USA. Still, they should atleast do some of the FPV lineup on special orders like the pontiac gto that holden sent; I guarantee you that demand would far outstrip supply.
What's more disappointing is that Alan Mulally, the former boss of Boeing turned boeing around when it was making losses, yet he refuses to try to atleast generate interest in Ford Aus products by doing a limited release. What a way to whet the appetite of the americans than to have a limited release of our car, let it gain cult status, then to sell their USA made rubbish under the guise of "Designed in Australia like the cult BF range".

[Agent86]

i've shown some mates stateside pics of my acid BA XR6T and they all love it and would buy one if it were for sale in the us..

i think the loss of local built car sales vs changeovers from other brands would proove to no be the big problem they think, because they dont offer anything like it.

[sleekism]

Isn't there no LHD harmonising for the Orion so basically NO chance of a Falcon export??

[irlewy86]

Originally Posted by ltd

Well Ford USA must love red, because that's all their finances have been in for the last few years. I guess in a way it's a poisoned chalice, because if they exported from here then it would take away sales of the american rubbish and cost jobs in the USA. Still, they should atleast do some of the FPV lineup on special orders like the pontiac gto that holden sent; I guarantee you that demand would far outstrip supply.
What's more disappointing is that Alan Mulally, the former boss of Boeing turned boeing around when it was making losses, yet he refuses to try to atleast generate interest in Ford Aus products by doing a limited release. What a way to whet the appetite of the americans than to have a limited release of our car, let it gain cult status, then to sell their USA made rubbish under the guise of "Designed in Australia like the cult BF range".

The major problem for Ford is the US based manufacturing. They spent so many years borrowing money from employee's future fund that they cant afford to shut down plants. Thats right its cheaper to keep the unprofitable going then try and raise the capital to shut them down. Ergo Ford America does its best to protect the US based products. Introducing the Falcon would make a few enthusiasts happy and a lot of unionists unhappy and major financial headaches.

So ultimately the best way forward for the whole group was for Australia to do the design and the Yanks to build it. It wont surprise me if Ford of Europe introduces a large RWD sedan built in the States.....

[Fev]

ford europe should take the Xr6T! it would go bonkers over there and compete with the VXr8

because we're from... BIZZARO AMERICA!!!

[merlin]

I go on some US forums and will occasionally post a picture of an XR6T or GT and SS and GTS ect. and they go absolutley nuts over them. They love big, RWD turbo or V8's over their, I can't beleive Ford don't export.

[kooky]

Originally Posted by merlin

I go on some US forums and will occasionally post a picture of an XR6T or GT and SS and GTS ect. and they go absolutley nuts over them. They love big, RWD turbo or V8's over their, I can't beleive Ford don't export.

Yes I agree I am on a North American Impreza site and they go spastic over the V8 6T rear drive variant over here, they just don't understand that not all UTE's are "El Camino's"!!!

[BLDNUT01]

its the unions in america that don,t want them there and i doubt it they'll get to make LHD focus's to export too ford aust has to cut 40mill out of it budget to got the focus in 2011 so nothing is for set in concret about the focus

[XR06T]

they sure do like em!

http://www.bmcforums.com/showpost.ph...4&postcount=32