Falcon Friday: Why we'll miss the Ford factory

COMMENT
When I was born in Geelong in early 1971 it was Ford Town, and the Blue Oval was on a roll.

The XY Falcon GTHO Phase III had just been released and Allan Moffat defended his Bathurst 500 title in 'the world's fastest sedan' that October, when 'Hoeys' claimed the top three places, and the first fully Australian designed, engineered and manufactured Ford – the third-generation XA Falcon – entered production late that year.

Yes, Holden released the first all-Australian car in 1948, and following on from the 48-215 it became the dominant brand in the 1950s and '60s, despite the launch of Ford's first Falcon in 1960. Holden's all-new HQ Kingswood in 1971 quickly became the fastest-selling Australian car ever at a time when Brocky dominated Bathurst in his HDT LJ Torana GTR XU-1.

Of course, this was well before Holden's first Commodore — based on Germany's Opel Rekord — arrived in 1978, but support for it fell away as Aussies turned back to the traditional large car, in the form of the Falcon.

Ford eventually claimed the title of Australia's most popular car from Holden, after it introduced the alloy-head six-cylinder engine in the 'XD½' model of 1980, and claimed Australian market leadership for the first time in 1982.

It took until the VT Commodore of 1996 for Holden's homegrown large car to regain the mantle of Australia's most popular car from its direct Ford rival, the EL Falcon.

Ford's Australian car-making history dates back to 1925 when the Geelong factory was built and first started churning out Model Ts in their thousands, putting Victoria's second biggest city on the map.

The same year saw the Geelong Cats win their first national Aussie Rules premiership, backed by Ford, and that unbroken, world-record 95-year sponsorship deal continues today.

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When I grew up in Geelong, the whole town lived and breathed Ford. My dad worked at Ford, my uncle worked at Ford and, like most Geelong school-leavers, I too went to work at Ford's historic Geelong plant, at least on night-shift while I studied journalism at Deakin Uni.

Over 56 years, Falcon has become the longest running vehicle name in Australian motoring history, and the oldest surviving car nameplate in the 113-year history of the Ford Motor Company. Only Ford's F-Series truck and the discontinued Lincoln Continental limo date back further, to 1948 and 1939 respectively.

All that ends on October 7, when Ford closes the doors to its Geelong and Broadmeadows factories for the last time, and the last of more than 3.5 million Falcon sedans, wagons, utes and vans (not to mention long-wheelbase Fairlanes and LTDs) rolls off the line.

Various factors have been blamed for Ford's – and Australia's – car manufacturing demise, but the truth is probably a combination of a strong local currency, import tariff reductions and a unionised, overpaid workforce making the industry uncompetitive in the face of a flood of high-value Asian imports.

Is it better for a government to directly subsidise the nation's car manufacturing industry to create and maintain jobs, as most successful car-making nations do, or to directly fund the larger number of welfare recipients when it no longer exists? I guess we'll soon find out.

Yes, unlike Holden and Toyota, Ford Australia's vehicle development legacy will live on post-manufacturing, when more than 1000 engineers and designers will continue to create models from the ground up Down Under.

But without car manufacturing, Geelong, Melbourne and Adelaide's northern suburbs will never be the same, and Australia will forever rely on other countries to make all of its vehicles -- just like its tyres, fridges and Blundstones.

Celebrating the history of Ford Falcon in Australia