15 posts tagged “ford falcon”

Someone has a beautiful 1963 Ford Falcon in Christchurch. This station wagon was beautifully restored, but also appeared to be now in daily use.

So, chaps, after you’ve taken your other half to The Time Traveler’s Wife, it’s time for a proper Eric Bana film.

When I was a kid, a cabbie living on Colombo Street had a Ford Cortina Mk II for his or her work.
   This was a far smaller car than the usual Holden Belmonts and Kingswoods and Ford Falcons that formed over 95 per cent of the taxi fleet in Wellington.
   I don’t know if (s)he got much business as part of Capital City Cabs, easily the minor player in a town that was dominated by Wellington Taxis and Black & White and Grey Cabs Ltd.
   Today I tailed a Toyota Belta taxicab. This was a Japanese import, and is better known as the Yaris Sedan or Vios in other nations.
   The funny thing is, it didn’t look funny.
   (Those darned Prius taxicabs look funny. They are even funnier on the motorway lugging hundreds of kilograms of batteries and hurting the environment. Especially in a city where cabs have largely been running clean natural gas since the early 1980s.)
   The reason the Belta didn’t look as odd as the Cortina is more testament to how little cars have grown over the years.
   Cabbies in Wellington have been defecting from the Australian full-size sedans to Nissan Cefiros and Teanas for a while, and Toyotas are, as in Dunedin, filling up the taxi ranks.
   Ford diehards are going for the Mondeo, which is larger than the Falcon anyway in most key measurements (width, rear legroom)—just it has a smaller engine and there’s a diesel option.
   If one considers that the Belta comes from the lineage of the Publica and Starlet, then it is tiny.
   But if one considers that the Belta has a very long wheelbase and that it is as wide as mid-sized cars were a decade ago, then no wonder it didn’t look small.
   Small cars are actually quite big, and big enough for most families these days. The only thing that keeps us thinking of them as small is snobbery.
   In fact, the only thing that would look really funny in 2008 is an overly large car, such as a Ford Fairlane, being a cab, especially one not converted to LPG.

From Autocade

Toyota Belta/Toyota Vios. 2005 to date (prod. unknown). 4-door sedan. F/F, 996, 1296, 1495 cm³ (4 cyl. DOHC). Essentially a booted second-generation Vitz, but designed at Toyota’s Japanese studio rather than its French one, predominantly for Asian markets. Sold also as the Yaris sedan in the US and Australasia; Vios in most export markets. Interior duller than Vitz; handling acceptable for a reasonably tall car.

I am a sucker for the “could have been” car stories, so stumbling across American designer Herb Grasse’s site was a real bonus today.
   Grasse was associate designer on the original Adam West Batmobile but he worked on many production cars, too, including the original Dodge Challenger, the XD Ford Falcon, the original Ford Laser of 1980, and the second-generation Ford Telstar. He was chief designer at Nissan Australia before its demise.
   Start on Herb’s production cars’ page and link from there—a very fascinating portfolio. It shows the XD Falcon was far more Granada-like at drawing stage, and that the Mazda Familia origins of the Ford Laser were far more obvious in earlier sketches. The first Telstar had shades of the Ford Taurus years before that model’s launch, while a clay for the second Telstar showed strong EA26 Falcon influences.

This is more groovy than a roller-skating date with Olivia Newton-John, having a fondue party or getting Erik Estrada to give you a signed helmet.

Ford Falcon Hardtop (XC)

Now that we are nearing the E241 Ford Falcon launch in New Zealand, and in response to a comment Robin made about an earlier blog post I made on the subject, I Googled the dimensions of the new car and compared them with the CD345 Mondeo.
   I’d been wanting to do this around the time of the Australian launch and now I see why the details were so darned hard to come by. There was nothing on the Ford Australia site at the time of launch.
   Ford uses tags such as CD and E to signify the size of car, so the Ford Ka is B class, the Focus is C, the Mondeo and Fusion are CD, and the Taurus is D. Falcon, traditionally the biggest car, is E (as is the Territory SUV). Minivans are given the V tag.
   Here’s the kicker: the Mondeo is bigger than the Falcon in overall dimensions with the exception of length, which might not mean much to buyers interested in a car’s packaging. They want to know wheelbase and width, and interior volume (which I did not look up).

E241 Falcon
L: 4,955 mm (up 25 mm)
W: 1,868 mm (up 4 mm)
H: 1,453 mm (up 9 mm)
Wheelbase: 2,838 mm (up 9 mm)

CD345 Mondeo
L: 4,778 mm
W: 1,886 mm
H: 1,500 mm
Wheelbase: 2,850 mm

   Ford and the other manufacturers know that ultimately, people judge a car’s size by engine capacity, in which case the Falcon’s base four-litre unit is more substantial than the Mondeo’s base two-litre (in the New Zealand market).
   Hence, the Chevrolet Impala also suffers from the tape measure stakes compared to the new Malibu in the US—but the Impala is not exactly a new car. Here we are talking about a brand-new design that, in global terms, should be bigger than the Mondeo.
   If you start looking at the Mondeo Turnier (wagon or estate), the measurements are even more substantial for length and height.
   Ford was probably wise not to renew the EA169 Falcon wagon this year, and leave it as a workhorse model. The Mondeo Turnier probably suits that market very well anyway and with the diesels, it will appeal to fleets.
   But it is tempting to start talking about the death of the full-size Australian car when the mid-size European car can no longer be considered mid-sized.

Australians won’t find this as cool since they’ve had this model for a few months, but it was a treat for me to see the E241 Ford Falcon (or FG series) prior to its official New Zealand launch. These are at Manukau, Ford Motor Co.’s New Zealand HQ, along with a classic Model A in its reception area.
   The models are the top-of-the-line G6E luxury model and the performance hero, the XR8.
   In the metal, they look nice but not that big, especially as the CD345 Mondeo has grown considerably. The slab sides make for a less aggressive look, which I don’t think is that good an idea in 2008, but such gentler shapes will probably be perfectly timed for 2010. The Ford family look is very apparent, as well as VW–Audiesque touches such as the rising feature line in the doors’ lower sills.
   It will have its loyal fans and the cabbies will love the LPG versions, even if the Japanese are moving into that market like crazy.
   I can’t wait to drive it as I hear Ford is on to a winner and dynamically, the Falcon is better than its chief rival, the Holden Commodore. And it’s certainly better than any Ford sedan available in the Americas.
   But if it were my money, and I had to get a Ford, the Mondeo makes more sense considering it’s basically now the same size. I don’t need a big four-litre six or a V8 under the bonnet and while I prefer rear-wheel drive, I’m willing to sacrifice that for the better fuel economy of the Mondeo.

Ford Falcon G6E

Ford Falcon G6E rear three-quarters

Ford Falcon XR8 recharging

2 comments

Ford Falcon XR8 rear

Ford Falcon XR8 side

Ford Model A

For some reason I enjoyed researching these US-built cars on Autocade. Some are forgotten for very good reasons, others out of unfairness. Not a complete list by any means, but hopefully I can challenge some memories out there.

Eagle Medallion. 1988–9 (prod. unknown). 4-door sedan, 5-door wagon. F/F, 2165 cm³ (4 cyl. SOHC). Renamed Renault Medallion, an Americanized Renault 21. New marque after Chrysler bought AMC in 1987, but cars quickly cancelled in favour of Mitsubishis. Actually a good car compared with its competition, but AMC’s small size and rumours of takeover damaged its chances; and the problems were not solved with the change of marque.

Cadillac Cimarron (J-car). 1982–8 (prod. 132,499). 4-door sedan, F/F, 1796, 1991 cm³ (4 cyl. OHV), 2837 cm³ (V6 OHV). A good idea: build a Cadillac that could take on the BMW 3-series, and do it cheaply, on J-car platform. Seville showed that Cadillac could go smaller and succeed, but at least that car did not look like the Chevrolet Nova. Here, Cimarron was essentially a Chevrolet Cavalier clone, yet the price was nearly double. Few were fooled into buying the smaller Cadillac—at least not at the prices the company wanted to charge. Four-cylinder engines did not help perceptions, though V6 arrived in 1985 and was standard from 1987. Final year production of 6,454; cancelled afterwards. Sector not filled till European-market BLS launched.

Ford Falcon (1970½). January–August 1970 (prod. 26,000 approx.). 2- and 4-door sedan, 5-door wagon. 250 in³ (6 cyl. OHV), 302, 351, 429 in³ (V8 OHV). For half a model year, Ford transferred its Falcon nameplate from the compact model to the intermediate Torino–Fairlane bodyshell (117 in wheelbase for sedans; curiously, the wagon was on 114 in), making the Torino’s engine options available. Still marketed as an economy car, the last American Falcon is characterized by its swooping design. After 1970, Falcons were made only in Australia and Argentina (with an assembly plant for Australian models in New Zealand).

Chrysler Imperial. 1990–3 (prod. 41,276 approx.). F/F, 3301, 3778 cm³ (V6 OHV). Last cars to wear Imperial badge. Upscale Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue of these years, with 3·3- (1990) or 3·8-litre (1991–3) V6. Y-body developed as largest version of K-car platform. Different nose and tail which made it longer than New Yorker by 4 in, though wheelbase stayed the same. Not that refined, with poor performance, suspension and transmission.