Fanatics fete Falcon

More than 400 Ford Falcon fanatics have welcomed the latest XR8 in a social media and television commercial opportunity at Avalon Airport near Geelong in Victoria today.

The fans formed a 'human racetrack' on which the new 335kW supercharged V8 four-door was filmed.

But there were no Group B rally-style moments or wild oversteer antics taking place just millimetres from the Ford faithful. The low-speed ‘parade’ may end up looking the business, but all of the high-speed and acceleration action will come courtesy of post-production special effects.

Ford Performance Racing drivers Mark Winterbottom and Bathurst winner Chaz Mostert were on hand to play roles in the promotion. Ford legend Alan Moffat was also part of the anthropological armco.

Ford Australia General Manager Marketing David Katic told motoring.com.au the opportunity was part film shoot, part thank you to the Falcon faithful.

Ford called for volunteers via a number of Ford forums and within less than 36 hours had more than double the people it could accommodate. Katic said fans came from all around Australia to participate in the event, which also hosted an impromptu Falcon GT display in one of Avalon Airport’s large maintenance hangers.

A number of #FalconFanatics even flew in from New Zealand to participate.

“We could have employed extras who don’t care about Falcon or involve our real fans — it’s great to see the passion,” Katic explained.

“These are faithful, highly engaged fans and we wanted to include them in as many aspects of the launch of Falcon as we could. We want our Falcon people to be out there talking about the car,” he said.

Katic said the assets produced on the day would be used in a number of promotional streams for the launch of the FG X Falcon range from late November.

There was no ‘selling’ at the event, Katic stated. That said, overall enquiry on the new supercharged 335kW XR8, which was the star of the Avalon event, has been strong, said Katic.

“Our dealers have been inundated with enquiry. It’s massively exceeded our expectations and we’re looking at how we can put more capacity [for XR8] into our build program,” the Ford marketing boss said.

Ford Australia will release the new FG X Falcon range in December. The XR8 will be the hero car of the range, priced from $52,490 – more than $18,000 less than the discontinued but mechanically identical FPV GT.