Falcon design Chief answers 'same-same' critics

Car company 'F' develops what is as near as damn it to an all-new sedan. Up to 80 per cent of the car's components are new and the car's exterior is different beyond skin-deep. Even such change-resistant fixtures as the roof pillars are new. There are new door construction and one-piece side pressings that deliver the designers more latitude than ever to sex-up the product.

So, if the company's new car is so radically different, why does it look so much like the car it replaces?

That's exactly what industry insiders and public alike are asking of Ford and its new FG Falcon. When the Blue Oval had a relative bagful of money to spend developing the Orion project, why did the company aim for a 'heritage' look, when a more youthful fresh design wouldn't have cost any more?

It's probably the obvious question to ask Scott Strong, Design Director, Ford Asia Pacific and Africa -- and after seeing the car in pictures and the flesh (and after your feedback) we did.

"Maybe we should have planned to have a BA [BF?] present [at the FG Falcon Showcase event]. I think if you were actually to see the BA next [to the new car], you would not have that impression", he told the Carsales Network.

"I will acknowledge that there are certain graphic elements we've retained as heritage cues," Strong revealed, quoting the XR range's frontal styling as an example.

"[We asked customers] Is it time to move on? XR owners say 'over my dead body', you know. That is an absolute heritage cue. We need to retain that", said Strong.

"I think you probably will get some people who say 'well, it [the FG] looks very similar to the outgoing car', but that's a strategy of making a portfolio of cars really hold together as they all come together, as you view them through different windows in time."

Strong (pictured, along with BF II and FG versions of the Falcon XT), asserts the FG's links to previous Falcons will help repeat buyers feel good about buying the new car (XR buyers in particular). However, he says Ford also needs to balance the need to justify in the minds of first-time buyers to the brand that the Falcon is also a car that's been developed from the same design culture as that of the Fiesta, Focus and Mondeo.

He contends the three faces of the FG do that. And that the car exhibits what Strong described as "global [Ford] design DNA".

In fact, more correct is 'strong Ford Europe design DNA.' For at the present time, Ford doesn't have global design DNA -- there's the European school of thought and the American one. Over time, those two schools will merge, Strong and other Ford execs assert, as an inevitable consequence of a portfolio of different models that must co-exist in the same showrooms.

According to Strong, Australian consumers prefer the current European styling school.

"As a guest here in Australia, that's always been my perception; it's European styling on what I -- from my side of the fence -- call 'American muscle'. Obviously it's 'Aussie muscle', but that's the perception that you get; it's European sensibilities on a big, muscular [sedan]."