Ford Falcon FG and FG X: Great answers to a once important question
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Ford Falcon FG and FG X: Great answers to a once important question

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By DrJohnWright - 28 May 2018

‘If “Falcon is the answer”,’ quipped a disc jockey (Doug Mulray, I recollect) in the very early 1980s, ‘it must have been a pretty silly question.’ Witty indeed, but in truth, for many years before then and for many years yet to come, Falcon represented a very convincing answer to the question: what is a good locally manufactured car for typical Australian families? Former editor of Wheels, Phil Scott, writing in 2016 of the Falcon’s imminent demise, observed that there was a time when it hadn’t even mattered what the question was!

The Falcon rode a rising trajectory from the spectacular days of the XP Durability Run in April 1965 through the ‘Mustang-bred’ XR, the ‘Great Australian Road Car’ (XB, 1973) to the EL (last of the EA generation, 1984), before entering what would prove to be a terminal decline beginning with the sadly underrated AU of 1998. The AU turned out with hindsight to have been Ford Australia’s product planners’ irreversible mistake. Or was it the fault of the marketing department?

Interior was quite a step up from the BF with improved driving position and elegant new wheel.

By the time Ford Australia launched its FG Falcon in May 2008, even the most ardent Ford fan probably realised that, no matter how good the new model was, it was unlikely to outsell the VE Commodore. But back in the 1980s, many buyers still believed Falcon was the answer! As late as the launch of the BA Falcon and probably for some months afterwards, optimistic Ford Australia executives still reckoned the Falcon could regain its once secure number one sales spot.

The FG was widely criticised for looking too much like its predecessor. I found this hard to understand at the time but I think the main reason for it was that the ‘face’ of the car had been foreshadowed when Ford Australia launched the BF II. Another contributing factor – and this was genuinely silly of the Falcon’s design team, or marketing people, or all of them – was that the entry level XT variant used the same wheel covers as the 2002 BA XT.

This was not the first time Ford Australia had offered a kind of preview of the next model Falcon. The transition from XD to softer XE through the softer XE of 1982 to the much softer XF in 1984 (to the extent, in my view, that the nose was too subtle for the remainder of the car, which just looked old; the XE Fairmont Ghia ESP is surely one of the best looking Falcons ever!) was intended to prepare customers for the more aerodynamic EA Falcon with its smooth nose and minimal radiator grille. Arguably though, this approach was less successful when the frontal styling of the FG looked so similar to that of the BF II: the last thing Ford Australia’s executives wanted was for anyone to think the FG was not a seriously improved Falcon!

The biggest problem was that quibbles about the styling distracted prospective customers from the extensive range of important changes that the engineers had introduced. These included (but were not limited to) sharper steering with a tighter turning circle, a more spacious interior with much improved ingress and egress, improved NVH and a new five-speed (French-made) automatic on the entry level XT variant.

For the first time in memory, rear seat occupants needed no special athletic talents to squeeze themselves into and out of the back seat. The A-pillars had a less ‘fast’ angle. A new and much more elegant steering wheel was fitted across the range. Mind you, the seating position itself was still too high for most drivers, but the improvements were palpable and tangible.

The G6 and G6E were crisply styled but the market wasn’t looking.

The model range had been rationalised, although not perhaps as widely as it should have been. Finally, the dated Futura nameplate disappeared. So did Fairmont and Fairmont Ghia. Obviously, the long-wheelbase Fairlane and LTD had already gone (2007). There were four non-XR variants, namely the XT, the G6 (essentially a Fairmont successor), G6E (ditto Fairmont Ghia) and the G6E Turbo (ditto Fairmont Ghia V8). Then there were the XR6, XR6T (for Turbo) and XR8.

My view is that G6 and G6E were silly names and certainly no advance over Fairmont and Fairmont Ghia. In early planning – before this switch had been decided on – the G6E and G6E Turbo (both of which were known internally as Super Ghia). As it transpired, the G6E was more worthy of the prestigious Ghia name (and associated elegant badge, which was inexplicably dropped some years before the end!) than most models that followed the original and nicely specified XD Fairmont Ghia.

Mark Behr, FPV Product Planning and Brand Marketing Manager, argued the case for a V8 version of the G6E with the famous ESP name: another good idea that fell on deaf ears.

Ford Australia’s brilliantly conceived AU Ute concept (with removable/replaceable plastic tray plus space behind the seats for luggage) was repeated with the FG. The new Ute was designed by Peter Jones, whose strong view was that the gap between cabin and tray was unacceptable on the BA/BF, so he shaped the new cabin to wrap slightly over the tray. Nevertheless, many observers still prefer the earlier models.

Mark Behr told me:

For FPV products we were heavily influenced by the Audi R8 styling concept that had intakes under the front headlights. I briefed the designers that I wanted something like this to make the new cars more aggressive. The Racoon eyes were developed and looked great. The inspiration there was the Audi R8 of 2005.

I also took the opportunity to downsize the rear spoilers which I always thought were way too big on BA and BF.

There was no wagon version and the last of the outgoing FG Mark II series was sold in 2010, a neat half century after the XK wagon had been released to an enthusiastic reception; there had been decades during which the demise of such a stalwart vehicle as the Ford Falcon wagon would have been almost unimaginable. With the loss of the long-wheelbase cars and the wagons, the business case for continued local manufacture was weaker: call it death by 1000 cuts; the strength of the local manufacturing industry for decades was its ability to produce so many variations of the one basic design, perhaps seen to greatest effect in the XA to XC era when the LTD had its own wheelbase and there were Hardtop variants of the Falcon, Fairmont, GT and the now highly cherished Landau.

Whether this shuffling of the deck chairs as the good ship Falcon sailed ever closer to its fatal iceberg was appreciated by customers is difficult to say. The principle seemed sound but there was little true rationalisation of what had long been an unwieldy range (dating back to the era when the sales rep drove the GL, his boss the Futura, etc. While product planners and motoring journalists could deconstruct the logic of the model range, I don’t reckon most punters could have been bothered in this new century: to many prospective customers they were all just Falcons. The ‘G6’ variants were well differentiated from both the entry level XT and the XR trio. They also got the ZF six-speed transmission, firmer suspension settings and wider eight-inch alloys shod with 235/50ZR17 tyres.

As for the G6E Turbo, here was the kind of high performance luxury flagship that the outgoing Fairmont Ghia perhaps should have been. The combination of the excellent turbocharged six-cylinder engine from the XR6T and a leather-upholstered cabin with features such as colour information screen, reversing camera and side curtain airbags represented almost astonishing value at $54,990 – and don’t forget that heavy discounting applied almost from the time the FG range was launched as Ford Australia’s marketing executives and Ford dealers battled for every single sale.

No question, the G6E Turbo was a more refined, more European-style sports luxury sedan than the VE Calais V with its 6.0-litre V8. In some respects it could be compared more than favourably with far more expensive offerings from Mercedes-Benz and – perhaps particularly – BMW.

But there was no way of selling this notion to buyers, beyond those who had long recognised the fundamental excellence of the Falcon from the time the under-appreciated AU made its debut in the final quarter of 1998. I include myself among those enthusiasts, and thoroughly enjoying all five AU and AU II Fords that I owned in the 1999-2001 time frame.

The problem was (a) perceptions of the Falcon sub-brand and (b) perceptions of the Ford brand (which was simply invisible to too many otherwise prospective customers). Judged purely as a car the G6E Turbo was a knockout. Where else in the world could you buy a refined turbocharged six-cylinder luxury sedan with 270kW of power (identical to a Calais V, but at lower rpm) and 533Nm of torque (only marginally more but available all the way from 2000 to 4750rpm rather than right up at 4400!) – for an autobahn-burning zero to 160km/h time of 11.3 seconds! – running the superb ZF six-speed automatic transmission like a BMW, Jaguar or Maserati and with sprawling room for five adults for little more money than a mildly optioned (four-cylinder, 115kW) BMW 320i?

Nevertheless, as Mark Behr suggested to me, using the FPV F6 engine in this car blurred the boundaries between Ford and FPV. It should have been detuned a little perhaps: who would have complained about ‘only’ 250kW?

If the G6E Turbo was the flagship of the new range, it was still the XR6 and XR6T that seemed to retain the most appeal to customers. This is because from the introduction of the first S-XR8 and S-XR6 way back in 1991 and 1992 respectively, Ford Australia went to considerable pains to differentiate these sporting variants visually (and in terms of overall flavour) from the once ‘mainstream’ GL (and GLi), Futura, Fairmont and Fairmont Ghia versions. XR Falcons enjoyed a following that deserted all these other cars once the AU went on sale. Holden had never achieved such critical differentiation with its sporty Commodores.

Frankly, compared with the G6E Turbo or even the XR6T, the FG XR8 was outclassed. But Ford Australia’s marketers were well aware that there was still demand for a V8 Falcon. Until the introduction of the new FPV GT some months later, at launch this was the only Falcon variant with a V8. No doubt, its aural qualities were superior to the turbocharged six’s but it was notably slower (zero to 100km/h in six seconds rather then five), thirstier and heavier to handle.

The Boss V8 had been significantly upgraded. The XR8 ($45,490 for the manual and $46,990 for the automatic) now got the essentially hand-built FPV 290kW version. Transmissions were both six-speeders, the manual a new Tremec. The improved front brakes, suspension tweaks and most of the visual elements were shared with the XR6.

Despite being overshadowed in performance by its turbocharged and V8 siblings, the standard XR6 was still an impressive machine. Its engine, of course, was no more powerful than the XT’s – this had been the case since the introduction of the 182kW ‘Barra’ six with the BA range in September 2002 – at 195kW. The zero to 100km/h time of 7.5 seconds was a remarkable 50 per cent slower than the XR6T’s or G6E Turbo’s but still respectable. It is probably also fair to say that with no upgrade to the system it was relatively better braked.

The 50th Anniversary variants were very popular, especially the XR6 and XR6T. But it was to be a long wait for the revamped FG X.

In 2010, the Falcon’s 50th Anniversary was generously celebrated in a range of special variants that spanned the range, including Utes. The most obvious of these on the road were the popular XR 50th Anniversary XRs. One wonders whether the people who conceived these well equipped limited edition Falcons could already see the writing on the wall: the Falcon had just six years of shelf life remaining!

In July 2011, by which time the Falcon’s continuing sales slide was already looking terminal, the EcoLPi dedicated gas variants went on sale. Even the XT came with the six-speed ZF automatic. The system was offered not only on the XT, G6, G6E and XR6 but also on Falcon XL, R6 and XR6 Utes (both in Styleside and Cab Chassis).

For the first time, the LPG Falcon engine did not suffer a drastic drop in power, claiming 198kW and 409Nm of torque. The engine offered even more flexibility than the petrol sixpack.

EcoBoost Falcon got a unique frontal treatment. It was lighter on its wheels, as well as lighter on fuel.

Sadly though, it was beginning to look as if buyers were mostly no longer shopping Falcons against rival cars. This was nowhere more obvious than in July 2012 when the most impressive of all FG Falcon engines was introduced, the turbocharged, direct injection 2.0-litre four-cylinder EcoBoost.

No other manufacturer offered this sort of choice in the one car: six-cylinder petrol, six-cylinder turbocharged petrol, V8, virtually hand-built high output V8, dedicated LPG six-cylinder, turbocharged four-cylinder petrol.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that of all the new cars I had driven in the first dozen years of the new century, the Falcon EcoBoost was the one that impressed me most. I did believe at the time though that it was already too late for the Falcon – any Falcon – to win public interest. Ford Australia, for its part, inexplicably failed to get the message across. The unfortunate outcome was that more EcoBoost XTs, G6s and G6Es were sold to Ford Australia itself than to the public.

This was a brilliant engine which made an already very good car even better. The lighter four-cylinder unit delivered identical performance to the six-cylinder petrol and EcoLPi variants with improved economy. Handling was better, too, thanks to the lighter weight of the smaller engine. Overall weight saving was an impressive 74kg.

As well as the fantastic EcoBoost engine with its generous 179 kW of power and astonishing (for a 2.0-litre petrol engine) 353 Nm of torque, the four-cylinder Falcons featured a range of refinements not found on their 6-cylinder counterparts. The special acoustic windscreen played a major role in keeping noise levels down so that the perception was that the smaller engine was quieter. The windscreen dramatically reduced wind noise. The G6 variants were fitted with an under engine insulator panel and all EcoBoost Falcons had an engine cover insulator and a redesigned exhaust system.

A great deal of work had to be done to incorporate what was essentially a reworked Mondeo EcoBoost engine into the Falcon’s rear-wheel drive layout. Ford Australia went to impressive lengths to take every opportunity to upgrade elements of the chassis in this process. For example, an all-new variable displacement power steering pump was developed. And although there was less weight over the front wheels, there was actually more heft and feel at the steering wheel. A more elaborate cooling system was used with twin cooling fans. The air-conditioning/climate control was re-engineered for the Falcon EcoBoost.

Taking all these measures in combination, it is easy to see that the EcoBoost cars cost more to manufacture than the equivalent Falcon sixes, but the prices were identical in deference to the lingering Australian consumer preference for larger capacity engines.

Ford’s EcoBoost technology set a world benchmark and its incorporation in what had once famously been proclaimed by its maker to be The Great Australian Road Car should have been of groundbreaking significance for the already ailing Australian automotive manufacturing industry; instead, the EcoBoost Falcons sank almost without a trace.

The following year came the announcement that Ford Australia would cease local manufacture in 2016. 

In April 2014 Ford Australia announced the closure of Ford Performance Vehicles. Fourteen months earlier it had taken the brand back in-house: absurdly, the dismissed executives were chauffeured off the premises in Holden Caprices, as if to add insult to injury.

The swansong FP V made 351kW (no fluke, and rising to 430 in over-boost mode!) of power. Five hundred cars were built for Australia and 50 for New Zealand. Additionally, there were 120 upgraded FPV Pursuit Utes with the 335kW/550Nm supercharged V8 engine.

By this time, typical monthly Falcon sales were 600-700 units. In 1995 Ford Australia sold almost 90,000 Falcons but by 2016 the total had dropped to 6604!

The FG X exterior was a clever facelift incorporating Ford’s international design themes. Even though the EcoBoost remained in the lineup, sales were a mere trickle.

Twenty-fourteen was a landmark year. The Falcon took its final fling in the guise of the facelifted FG X with Ford’s international styling themes, most notably the trapezoidal grille and slim-line headlights. The rear styling bore a close resemblance to the Jaguar XF, despite the fact that Jaguar had long moved out of Ford ownership.

A key new feature was an updated Sync connectivity system that could automatically dial 000 in the event of a crash. But it was Ford Australia itself that needed emergency assistance at this stage.

For lovers of V8 Falcons the return of the XR8 (now with 290kW) was welcome, but arguably the XR6T was the better car. But, for many, there was still nothing to match an XR8 Ute (at anywhere near the price).

Even though it was already too late, a further rationalisation had been made to the range. The G6 was dropped and the XR8 was reintroduced after a three-year absence. It used FPV running gear.

With 335kW of power and 570Nm, it was just as well that the XR8 was equipped with Brembo four-piston calipers up front. It also had the widest wheels ever seen on a production Falcon with 19 X 8s up front and 19 X 9s behind (shod with 275/35R19 rubber).

As a final gesture to consolidate the Falcon’s vital place in Australia’s motoring heritage, in March 2016 Ford Australia released limited edition 325kW XR6 and 345kW XR8 Sprint variants, both of which sold out almost immediately. What a great irony: after battling to sell Falcons basically since late 1998, the last two new variants proved highly collectible. It will be some years before we fully realise what we have lost with not only the Ford Falcon but the entire local automotive manufacturing industry.

The FPV GT-F sedan and matching Pursuit Ute were priced at $77,990 and $52,990 respectively. In the case of the former, the ‘351’ denoted kiloWatts not cubic inches (and the Pursuit had 315, still more than adequate!).