The Ford Falcon used to be an institution in Australian driveways. Everyone's ridden in one, some people have been born in them and presumably many have been conceived in them.

But right now it appears to be in a death spiral. Sales are at their lowest ebb in the car's five-decade history: last month people bought more of the Falcon spin-off, the Territory SUV, than they did of the donor car.

The demise of the Falcon is turning into one of those painfully slow deaths you see at the opera. Chapter 367 came during the week when the global boss of Ford, Alan Mulally, left the Falcon off a list of cars he said would serve ''100 per cent'' of markets worldwide.
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There was a time when Ford Australia was one of the world's great automotive innovators. OK, it was in 1934, but the Australian operation is credited with inventing the coupe utility, aka the ute.

Almost 80 years later, that knack for building cars Australians love has disappeared. It makes more sense to build a car for the whole world than develop one specifically for local tastes.

Mulally calls it ''One Ford''. The former Boeing boss points out that when he was building aircraft, he didn't build a different 747 for each different country. But globalisation is only part of the Falcon's problem.

At home, Australian buyers are flocking to smaller, more efficient cars and high-riding SUVs.

Younger buyers, in particular, have almost no interest in a car their parents drove.

Australian families once chose between Ford and Holden; these days they can choose between more than 20 small cars and 50 SUVs. Even fleets have been tempted by the new breed of family cars.

With the exemption of performance models, the space and pace of the ''big Aussie six'' has lost its appeal.

Of more concern is the lack of interest in the Falcon overseas; it has missed the boat, literally. The strength of the Australian dollar and the growth of low-cost factories in Asia mean an export program is a forlorn hope.

Source: smh

Yeah because cars are the same as Aeroplanes and all (sarcasm) they don't need to suit the countries conditions
Ford Australia has done well with building their cars to suit the Aussie market, then this t*** comes along and wants to make a "one ford" world wide what a douche

It sux, but it's an inevitable reality I think. Profit margins will always mean more to large corporate entities than the you's and me's of the world. Sadly, it is a simple reality of the world we live in....

lets face it car production isn't where it was even 20 - 30 years ago. Most of the big companies aren't financially viable any more - look at the bail outs in the US.. as much as we'd like there to be an aussie Falcon its a thing of the past unfortunately. I get the feeling the FG was supposed to be a tilt toward a world car in that it is `inoffensive' in its design (bland is another word that comes to mind..) because, lets face it, its competition is things like Camrys and other jap whitegoods type cars - the majority of new car buyers are NOT car heads - I mean, look at the adverts, what do they push as features - I pod connectivity, FFS !

unfortunately 2 true

It pisses me off, because this is true.
I'm glad to be an outlier to that fact.

I'll keep a Ford Falcon, way past it's expiry date, just to carry on it's legend.

F**k Communists... taking away our Falcon.
"One Ford".... Pffft.

Sieg Heil?

Yeah much better they contnue the way they were and simply cease to exist . This guy is NOT a douche he is the saviour of Ford for without him Ford would be in the same crap as G.M. and Chrysler accepting massive public handouts to simply survive .

I believe that in the next few years to come many p'platers won't even be buying falcons or commodores like their parents. A majority of my mates drive little 2L honda's because of their efficiency, reliability and power to weight ratio. In the end of the day I'd rather my EL XR6 and if i could afford a new car I'd go out and buy a FG XR6t straight off the line the way I like and with the options I want.

Like said earlier, companies are promoting ipod connectivity and everyone goes crazy for features like that. Look back 10 years ago..who brought a Hyundai? now their selling more than the Ford range with only one of their models.

I'm 18, by the time I'm married and have kids and they get to my age I don't think they'll even see or know what a falcon is..shame.

+1
my feelings exactly.

Our kids are going to live in a F**k horrible place.

wow i wonder what will happen the FPV? new range of F4 gentle breeze's?

paying over a dollar sixty today for fuel to fill my 80 litre ute tank soon the shine off my falcon I can tell you. I've been hanging on to larger cars myself but unfortunately, I use mine for business, and it's true: With fuel prices the way the are and no viable alternative,small cars getting bigger and faster, the 'big' car is heading for a demise.

I salute those who think they will hang on to them for eternity, but the reality is, the older V8 is all but dead. The 6 will soon follow, and we all know there is no point keeping the platform with anything less.

Makes sense; can't really expect the majority of people to still be buying falcons when they don't have a use for them.

I don't agree on people not liking the cars their parents drive. I think it is more:
a) Economic reality - People have become a lot more $ focused, it doesn't help the media feeds fuel to the fire with all the doom and gloom about long term financial outlooks.
b) Image - the majority of the my generation don't want to be seen in a falcon/commodore (remembering that people who modify cars past wheels or maybe lowering are probably within 5% of the overall population).

Last edited by skidder on Mon Mar 12, 2012 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ford Australia need a wake-up.....they keep dropping the ball.....They had a prototype 4 door ute...thats as far as it got......about 12 months later, Holden had the Crewman ute......talk about dropping the ball.......look at the sales they got from that, especially from Shire Councils, coz they got tax breaks on them from the Fed. Gov't.........
Why haven't Ford Aust. looked into fitting that new 5 cyl turbo diesel ( From the Ranger ) into the FG Falcon....they've had heaps of time to do it... ....FFS, back in the day, you could buy a Dato 200B with an LD20 Diesel.....in other countries, not here....
Look at Europe, they've had petrol and diesel variants of everyday cars now for 20+ years.....the only things that came close here was the Mk1 Golf Diesel and Gemini Diesel.....granted they weren't powerhouses, but dropping a turbo on sure changes them.
I used to work on the Golf Diesel Mk1's....people were getting 52mpg out of them back then, no turbo either......they had great grins on their dials with that fuel economy.
Why is it Ford Australia didn't use the all alloy block 5.4 Modular ?????.....instead we got the HD F250 engine with a little sportiness ( 4 valve, quad cam ) instead of the 220 which was a run of the mill engine.

I think Falcon would have done fairly well and stayed alive a little longer if they had an option of a diesel engine. Yes most people in the public won't buy them because it is diesel, but most companies or even Government will probably use them for their high efficiency. They may cause a bit more pollution, but a push with BioDiesel capable engines could have seen a healthier alternative. The only problem would have been higher sulfur dioxide pollution (which can now be reduced even more with new catalyst designs) if pollution was their problem (even though CO2, CO etc were much much lower than standard petrol cars). (I'm not going into an argument with BioDiesel and its use in current diesel engines that have never run BioDiesel before).

It will be a shame to see them go and I will be hanging onto my trusty EL Fairmont 6 cylinder for a long time yet. It will probably end up as my project car once it dies.

I will never sell my ute if I can help it.
Buy another car, yes.. but I love the falcon.

The big car is a dying breed. It's a sad fact. Even those annoying city slickere 4wds are coming out with 4cyl now.

The only upside to this is that, with a bit of luck, a few years down the track nostalgia will bring a special edition falcon back to the market.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... anything that keeps Ford afloat is a positive, even if I'm not happy about the direction they're heading.