Ford commits to V8 future... for now

Ford Australia's President has rejected claims that the company is looking to drop its V8 engine from the Falcon line-up. Speaking to the media last week Marin Burela said the bent-eight was an important part of the Falcon line-up despite the XR6 dominating sales.

However, he tempered his comments by saying that ultimately a decision over the long-term future of the V8 would be determined by customer demand.

"We've made no changes to our plans on V8. The V8 at this point-in-time is still very much part of our portfolio and its part of our performance range of cars," Burela said. "The market will ultimately decide where the V8 fits, but at this point-in-time [there will be] no change to what we have. It's a good engine and we continue to work on it.

"Clearly our FPV are doing a great job, you've all seen the GS we've just launched; we're very proud of that. All those vehicles were pre-ordered before we made them. I was talking to [FPV boss] Rod [Barrett] and Brian [Mears, Asia-Pacific boss of FPV co-owner Prodrive] just the other day and my concern was I wish we had more."

But the decision to add the new entry-level FPV has led to speculation that Ford is looking to replace the XR8 with the GS.

"Not necessarily," Burela said, not ruling out such a plan. "Our line-up is good. We have V8s and they are being bought into, but more and more over time what we've found is depending on who you are, what you want, what your application is and why you're buying a car we've found the [XR6] turbo is meeting the needs of a very strong consumer group.

"However, the V8 still has its place and we're not going to change anything as far as the V8 line-up is concerned. The things we're doing with FPV is about a different kind of performance, branded under the FPV brand as opposed to the customer that buys the XR8. Particularly the XR8 in Utes, lifestyle vehicles, and even some XR8s in the sedan, but it's really the lifestyle utes that attract the V8 buyer."

A study of the Falcon XR8 sales demonstrates Burela's claims about the Ute playing an important role in the V8 program. According to year-to-date figures supplied by Ford the XR6 accounts for 40 per cent of total Falcon sedan sales while the XR8 is only 2.5 per cent. It's a similar story with Utes: XR6 taking 22 per cent share but with XR8 capturing 6.5 per cent shares.

Ford only provided percentage figures but based on the latest VFacts figures that show 19,776 Falcon sedan sales and 7455 Ute sales YTD for August, the company has shifted around 500 V8s in both variants.

That means, despite the sedan selling over twice as many units so far this year, V8 sales between sedan and ute are almost the same in terms of numbers sold.

Given then V8 sales account for roughly 1000 units out of almost 30,000 Falcons sold in 2009, it appears Ford is getting a message from its customers; and the message is they want six-cylinders…

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