Goodbye Ford Australia

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10885647

So, Ford is shutting down their Australian manufacturing, and that means no more RWD Falcon. I has a sad.

Last of the V8's mate?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=8bQzkdK2ha0

no more beasts of the southern wild

Life as I know it just ended

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2013/05/ford-officially-shutting-down-australian-operations-in-2016-video.html

[URL=http://media.photobucket.com/user/beefnachos/media/xygtho.jpg.html][/URL]

In reply to JoeyM:

Love The Beast is a great film.

Oh, and if Australian Ford Falcon XB's made it here in the 70's, I would not have a 1979 Trans Am.

In January last year, the federal government contributed $34 million to Ford's $103 million production upgrade, and the Victorian government an unspecified amount.

Wow, that didn't work out at all.

Sad what is going to be their tube framed variant for the V8 Supercars series? A fusion?

DirtyBird222 wrote: Sad what is going to be their tube framed variant for the V8 Supercars series? A fusion?

COT ugh

This berkeleying sux

Sad news for the Aussies BTW, I had a hard time not reading those articles with an Aussie accent

HappyAndy wrote: Sad news for the Aussies BTW, I had a hard time not reading those articles with an Aussie accent

me too

This is sad news, but this is not new. I wrote on my blog about it almost a year ago.

http://carburetorcounty.blogspot.com/2012/07/death-of-model.html?m=1

No more Falcon, no more Ute, no more 4.0L Inline Six.

So...I guess Holden won?

aussiesmg wrote:

HappyAndy wrote: Sad news for the Aussies BTW, I had a hard time not reading those articles with an Aussie accent

me too

crikey..

We should have been driving Falcon's all along instead of Granadas, Fairmonts, Tauruses and Fusions. If Ford America has been building cars America wants, what the berkeley is wrong with Americans?

FlyinMikeyJ wrote: We should have been driving Falcon's all along instead of Granadas, Fairmonts, Tauruses and Fusions. If Ford America has been building cars America wants, what the berkeley is wrong with Americans?

different cars for different markets.. in general, Americans like to drive cars they can afford.. we buy based on price.

FlyinMikeyJ wrote: We should have been driving Falcon's all along instead of Granadas, Fairmonts, Tauruses and Fusions.

The funny thing is, the Granada was the last car built on the (US) Falcon chassis. I don't know how much Australian Falcons had diverged from the US model in that time.

Ford stuck several names on that floorpan. Falcon, Maverick, Granada are the only three Ford models I can think of, not counting the pre-68? Mustangs. (IIRC the '71-73 were on short midsize chassis, not sure where the 69-70 models were) They couldn't leave well enough alone with their "rebranding". Remember the year that they renamed the Taurus "Five Hundred"? At least they wisely went back to the old name this time.

I'll always have fond memories...

The XB Falcon would have been one helluva Mustang up here. Sorry to see the end of the line for them.

Long shot: maybe someone down there in Oz will buy the tooling cheap and produce limited run Falcons? I bet there is probably enough demand for a small specialty operation.

aussiesmg wrote: Life as I know it just ended http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2013/05/ford-officially-shutting-down-australian-operations-in-2016-video.html [URL=http://media.photobucket.com/user/beefnachos/media/xygtho.jpg.html][/URL]

Was that one of yours?

This sucks. Seems like down under was one of the few places you could still buy a 'real car'

Knurled wrote: not counting the pre-68? Mustangs. (IIRC the '71-73 were on short midsize chassis, not sure where the 69-70 models were)

All were on Falcon chassis. The '71-73 were the same as the rest, just lengthened and widened a bit. The '69-70 were the same as the '68 (which is why they had to notch the shock towers for the BOSS 429. The '71-73 were designed with the 429 in mind). Remember in '70, the Falcon itself became the base model of the Torino, which was actually bigger than the Mustang.

Knurled wrote: Remember the year that they renamed the Taurus "Five Hundred"? At least they wisely went back to the old name this time.

Ford has always had this sick facination with naming their cars with the letter "f" in beginning. Focus, Five Hundred, Falcon, Fairmont, Fusion, F150, etcetc. Usually it works, sometimes it backfires (five hundred) and most of the time people never notice

So how does one go about purchasing the rights to produce / license falcon bodies/chassis?

Sad news. I've only seen the falcon on TV but I've always liked it.

Bugger.

Protege2886 wrote: So how does one go about purchasing the rights to produce / license falcon bodies/chassis? Sad news. I've only seen the falcon on TV but I've always liked it.

You can start here http://www.ford.com/ and find your way through it.

There's an investor area there. I'm sure you can find someone who will be willing to sell it to you for $10B or so. Maybe you can negotiate it to $1B.

Uggg the Falcon was the coolest car Ford made.