Ford Australia celebrates 50 years in Oz!

Forced induction style.

The Ford Falcon was first sold to the Australian Public a little over 50 years ago.

At times Ford Australia has enjoyed a growing market, government subsidies, fleet sales and a public battle with its nemesis Holden Australia’s Commodore. Both the Falcon and Commodore were designed and built here in Australia for Australian’s and our country’s conditions. For years this battle raged on race tracks and across the model range as they both speed to develop better products and capture a larger market share.

Times have changed and while there is larger demand for vehicles than ever before, the public now has a much broader range of choices and both the Falcon and Commodore have been slowly declining with a dwindling market share for large family cars and customers who instead opt for smaller imported cars.

What does this mean for somebody who buys this XR50 Turbo?

It’s a pretty simple formula; if demand drops, a group of engineering & marketing people get together and create a better value package which will hopefully entice buyers. Meaning you, the customer WINS.

And this package is a true winner!

Playing around with the “light painting” photography technique. It really shows off the richness of colour

Let’s work from the inside out.

This car has a luxury feel. The soft leather upholstery features a classy embroided insignia. Ford has been generous and splashes the same leather on the armrests. A sporty feel is introduced to the cabin by perforated leather on the steering wheel and gear stick. A dark carbon fibre look trim is used to blend the piano black console seamlessly into dash. It looks stunning but is very good at showing up dust or finger prints. My tip is to buy a microfiber cloth and keep it in the console if this offends you.

This simple and clean design will age gracefully

The controls are ergonomic and logical. I can tell that the Ford interior engineers have taken a lot of time to study what people expect to find and how the systems should work.

A special mention for the programmable Instrument cluster. The centre display can show you a huge variety of information from a digital speedo (which became my preference to the analogue), fuel economy and even audio settings. The added bonus is that you can simultaneously display remaining distance to empty or a vast variety of interesting stored information.

The dash lights up most magnificently at night

The steering wheel controls are simple and enable audio control for volume, input (am /fm / cd/ aux) as well as a very simple and easy to use cruise control. A feature I really like in the Falcon was the indicator stalk. Light tap up or down and it will flash 3 times, perfect for a lane change and no need to commit to locking it on!

This model also has the premium sound and a full colour display which shows you the time, audio information, climate control, external temperature and will switch to the reverse camera, if optioned.

The software that drives this integrated central control unit is unflappable.. It can’t be flapped!

Pairing your mobile is a piece of cake and voice dialling is second nature with the button located right in front of you on the wheel.

There is an iPod connection in the console and it works brilliantly. But this is also a source of great annoyance here.. If you have 2000+ songs like me and don’t believe in playlists because you hate using iTunes, like me.. Then you pretty much have to listen to your music on shuffle all the time. Why? You ask? Well the control system is uses a central wheel to select and guide you through the menus. This is fine if you have a max of 10 menu items, but when you want to search through 2000 songs.. It’s a very slow process.. Made slower still if you have an old iPod and it struggles to generate the list as you spin though it.

The Ipod connect is located in the center console. During normal use the phone / mp3 player is concealed.

This is forgivable, however the dealer fitted reverse camera is not! Unlike the factory fitted option a dealer fitted reverse camera is a cheap alternative and a seriously poor example as this picture illustrates.

This camera was siliconed in place and it has given way allowing for a fantastic shot of our number plate! It’s an easy fix, but it’s something that you should not have to deal with.

Mmmmm.. quality..

Stepping outside the car you could be forgiven for mistaking this special model for a standard XR6 Turbo with the luxury pack (which upgrades the wheels to 19”). That is if you ignore all the special insignias on the front guards in place of the indicators, on the rear boot and the massive full length race flag style vinyl along the doors. There are some more subtle refinements which really make all the difference.

The 19’ wheels are from the standard luxury pack wheel however Ford powder coated them a deep grey and polished the out edges of the rim. This gives the wheel a current and trendy look something Holden quickly replicated for its “Thunder” special edition range.

Very handsome wheels

The xr50 was also fitted with mirror indicators from the G6E for a classy look and reverse sensors standard.

Ford had been struggling to develop a model in recent times that captured the imagination of the public until the BA came along with a Turbo strapped to its straight 6 Barra engine.

So began the modern age of simple computer based power modifications. Rev heads everywhere quickly learned that could cheaply gain huge increases in power and so began a massive modification market for the XR6T, which in turn spilled onto the drag strips and earned the Turbo variants of the Falcon range some serious street respect.

This XR50 Turbo packs and impressive 270kw’s the same power as BF FPV F6 TYPHOON and the same power as the 6ltr LS2 found in the SS Commodore! There isn’t much on the street that can beat this machine unless serious money has been spent on the car or modifications.

A quick note, if you did want to wind up the wick there are tuning houses which offer packages which just start with a tune and air filter and progress to full exhausts, larger injectors and new turbo guts.

Some examples:

Horsepower Factory

Niz Pro

A quick Google of a standard FG XR Turbo performance reveals:

100km/h in just 5.1 seconds and the quarter mile (or 400-metre sprint) in 13.4 seconds.

At the time of release this destroyed even HSV’s top guns and would give a current 317 a decent scare.

It’s rather plain to look at.. but with 270KW this engine packs a punch

This car is not a sports car, it’s a lounge chair with rockets strapped on. That being said Ford has done a brilliant job of making it stop and has solved the ongoing problem of “peddle shudder”, which had plagued the Falcon since the first AU in 1998.

The handling is direct and not too heavy. It’s easy to drive and makes you feel very confident taking corners with some enthusiasm. The XR50 feels neutral in corners and turns in much better then you’d expect from a bigger car, which would normally unsettle you with fair bit of understeer on turn in.

The suspension is very good, absorbing road roughness and bumps despite riding on 19’ wheels wrapped in a thin layer of liquorish. It’s not spungy, but it does tend to get some slight body roll in the middle of long corners. I feel confident that this car won’t let go before I chicken out and I suspect this is due partly to the incredible levels of grip supplied by the tyres (Dunlop SP Sport Maxx). Ford has done a great courtesy to its owners by suppling this amazing level of grip off the bat.

My only fear for this combination is in the second hand owners market. I’m confident most owners will cheap out and fit inferior tyres when it comes time to change, when in reality the bare canvas of the Dunlop’s would be better than the generic crap that will replace them.

This XR50 turbo is supplied standard with a space saver (spits on the ground in disgust). However this does have unforseen advantages for both the owner and Ford. The owner gets a bigger boot and a slight weight saving. Ford saves money.

The trick is not to let the cheapness show, or appear in everyday use.

There are only two points where some cheapness is really evident. The first being the sun visors. Having driven a BA Fairmont I’ve handled the some really nice fabric covered sun visors, this car is fitted with a plastic sun visor that makes me cringe every time I touch it. If you own an early Korean car you’d probably think the finish was amazing. The only other place where cost cutting is really evident is the seam on the interior door handle. It’s just on the top edge where you fingers grip and you feel it every time you go to get out of the car.

Touring is a breeze and its highway economy is very reasonable hovering between 8-10L per/100kms. An unexpected safety measure additional to the 5 Star ANCAP rating was a 2hr driver reminder to stop for a break.

This sedan is designed to be everything to everyone. It has loads of space to be a family car and plenty of grunt to tow most things. The tested version was fitted with the 2.3tonne towbar and towed a tandem trailer with our 1tonne racecar from Melbourne to Shepparton and back. Maintaining the set speed limit of 110 on the freeway and the max though the windys between Seymour and Yea the XR50 achieved an astonishing 14.7L/100kms! And at no point did I feel like the trailer was getting unstable.

The simple refined lines don’t make this car a stunner; it’s more of a quiet achiever.

Now here’s a lesson in product economy. We all want the best built car for our money. This car ticks all the boxes. It has oodles of power and performance, a bit of sexy sedan styling and a semi luxurious feeling, all for a reasonable price. A true bargain in the second hand market and testimony to Ford Australia’s ability to build a great product.