FPV F6 Typhoon and F6 Tornado 2005 Review

What we liked
>> Ballistic straight-line speed
>> Brick wall brakes
>> Performance bargain

Not so much
>> Pedal placement
>> Road noise in ute version
>> Cabin treatment cheap

OVERVIEW
Since launching in Australia in June 2002, the faster Ford tuner has stormed the performance scene with highly-tuned V8s like the GT/GT-P sedans and Pursuit and Super Pursuit Utes.

Indeed, in December 2004 and for the first three months of 2005, the Prodrive-Ford Aus joint venture topped its archrival, Holden Special Vehicles, in short-wheelbase 'like for like' cars, ie: only AWD and long-wheelbase Granges kept the red team on top of the stats sheet.
But V8s aren't all that FPV does and now after a false start (see below) FPV's turbocharged F6
Typhoon and its Tornado sports utility sistership are set to draw more fans to brand blue.

The F6 twins are more than just tweaking Ford's already brilliant XR6 turbo -- they represent a fundamental shift away from the Australian performance heartland. No longer is the V8 the be-all and end-all of Aussie muscle cars.

The Typhoon was a poorly kept secret from late 2003 and FPV trotted out a thinly disguised 'concept' version at the 2004 Melbourne show in March. October 2004 saw the 'production' version revealed at the Sydney motor show, and -- surprise, surprise -- it was little changed from the concept.

Launched to much fanfare late in 2004, alas the record will show it was a false start for the F6 family. Clutch failures traced to a $2 part after a 7200 man-hour testing and rectification program (that nobody at Ford or FPV seems keen to add up the cost of!) meant the car was withdrawn from sale in late Jan 2005 after less than 130 were delivered.

Now, as this report is updated in late April 2005, the Typhoon and its two-door Tornado stablemate are ready to ripple Australian bitumen again with a mix of refinement and an outrageous 550Nm of torque.

It's clear that the clutch failures have left their mark on the culture of FPV. The positives, according to the brand's honchos, are new engineering processes, a stronger team and a better appreciation of what the company needs to do in the future to address its customers' needs and wants. The negative is no matter what we write here, until a flood of H20 has rippled under the bridge the skeptics will label the F6 as flawed.

We are satisfied, at least initially, the fix has been made and as such the car(s) deserve a second chance.

FEATURES
Every F6 starts life as a Falcon XR6T (sedan or ute) which means Ford's Car of the Year-winning BA chassis and body and a turbocharged six-cylinder engine under the bonnet.

The Typhoon/Tornado gets some mechanical modifications, mainly to the engine, which boost power 30kW to 270kW and torque a whopping 100Nm to 550Nm.

Both versions wear a cohesively designed body-kit which leaves you in no doubt about the car's intentions. Unique details include 18-inch wheels and tyres and the letters FPV and F6 etched into the real metal mesh grilles at the front.

There's only one model in each body style and it's a six-speed manual. Even as of late April 2005, the BTR automatic gearbox used in the GT and GT-P V8s has not been upgraded to handle the force-fed six's torque -- the most of any local production engine, ever.

Price at $58,950, the F6 Typhoon is more than $2000 below the V8-engined GT though FPV prefers to say it "sits alongside the GT". The F6 Tornado ute lacks a few of the bells and whistles of the sedan but hits the dealerships with an RRP of $51,950. Big money for a work truck but think of it as a two-seater Aussie sportscar...

COMFORT
The interior of both cars is pure FPV, which means sports seats, FPV trim and drilled alloy pedals. There's the signature FPV starter button on the dash, which we still forget about from time to time and sit there cranking the key to no avail. Owners won't make the mistake.

Cloth trim is standard with leather a $1850/$2750 option depending on how many seats you have to cover.

Ford's driving position is second to none, thanks to reach and tilt adjustable steering, and rake, height and slide adjust on the seat. Large windows give a good view in all directions, and a high level of interior equipment adds to the panache.

The Typhoon gets the high-spec console off the likes of the Fairmont Ghia with bi-zone aircon and premium sound. Tornado ute buyers make do with the lower rent console - no hardship. Sound upgrades are available if doof doof is important.

The sedan's rear seats are typical of a Falcon, which means plenty of legroom and headroom, and enough width for three adults though the seat facing is quite sculptured.The boot's cavernous, and should easily accommodate three sets of clubs, a case of stubbies and a football, or whatever you want to throw in there.

Thanks to its longer wheelbase, the ute bed of the Tornado, like its humble Ford Utility donor model is the best in the business - long enough to easily accommodate two full size dirtbikes and then some. The Supercab aspect of the design means there's handy space behind the front seats too, though remember it's a strict two-seater. Payload is approx 540kg - a number limited by the tyre load rating rather than that of the leaf spring rear end, according to FPV.

Typhoon's on-road ride is typical of FPV in that it delivers a surprising amount of comfort for a performance sedan. It absorbs bumps extremely well, and can leave you thinking it's a luxury tourer rather than a highly strung turbo terror.

But she ain't soft when the road turns, that's for sure. After all, it's been built with bends in mind, not business trips. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, for more on Typhoon's (and Tornado's) gale force performance, skip down to the On The Road section.

SAFETY
There are benefits to beginning with a Falcon, and safety's one of the more obvious examples. All Typhoons/Tornados come with driver and passenger front airbags. There's side airbags for the front row in the sedan.

Typhoon gets big Brembo disc brakes at all four corners while the Tornado gets FPV's high-performance braking package as standard (Brembos are a $5950 option).

Antilock brakes (ABS) is standard on both cars (Sedan four channel, ute three) along with electronic brakeforce distribution (EBD).

Traction control is also part of the standard Typhoon package, and is switchable for
those times when you, err, umm, don't need it. No such luck with the Tornado - traction control is limited to judicious use of the right welly. There's no doubt that this car could be a handful in the wet or on dodgy surfaces.

At least as a first buyer of either of the F6s you get a full day driver training tuition. An F6 ute and a racetrack? We might buy one ourselves.

MECHANICAL
Okay, we know Typhoon is based on the Falcon XR6T, but it's surprising how capable that base package turned out to be. FPV's changes aren't exactly sweeping, but rather a tweak here, a modification there, and whammo, you've got a sub-14 second six cylinder performance sedan.

FPV adds a dual entry intake to increase the amount of air entering the engine, it also wicks up the Garret turbochargers maximum boost by around 50 percent to 0.64 bar. The intercooler
is twice the size of XR6T's standard unit to cope with this extra air, and the valve train is upgraded. The XR6T's exhaust system remains unchanged.

FPV's grabbed the XR6T's new six-speed Tremec T56 manual gearbox, with its new ratios, and dropped a shorter diff in the rear. Effectively, you end up with a slightly longer first gear than the old turbo and much shorter stacking of second through sixth to keep the engine spinning in that power band.

And what a power band. Under the bonnet, the F6 270 Turbo delivers 270Kw of power at 5250rpm and its peak torque of 550Nm is delivered at just 2000rpm and remains constant through to 4250rpm.

Of course, no technical discourse on the F6 would be complete without detailing the changes that have been made to the twin-plate AP Racing clutch. Very similar to the unit used in the Ford GT, various TVRs, Aston Martins and other high performance cars, the initial design of the clutch has been changed to completely eliminate the compentry which failed in the first customer batch of F6 Typhoons.

Put simply, FPV, Prodrive and AP Racing's engineers have modified the manner which the mechanism disengages the intermediate drive plate on the twin-plater. The result is a clutch that the maker says is good for well in excess of 700Nm and yet has normal pedal loads and a wide, driver friendly take-up point.

Our test drive didn't turn up any foibles with set-up - not that we expected it to do so... FPV claims it has logged more than 100,000km of testing on the new set-up in both Australia and the UK. And yes, the F6 Typhoon did turn plenty of heads in the Ol Dart.

For the record FPV engineers used the extra testing time to further finetune the idle and high-heat characteristics of the F6 powerplant.

F6 Typhoon's other changes centre around the suspension, including the previous GT's front springs and new model's uprated rear springs. This endows the Typhoon with lighter steering feel than the GT, and is better suited to Typhoon's lighter front end.

COMPETITORS
Nope, none from HSV, the company which (so far) isn't interested in high performance six-
cylinder engines. Former HSV boss John Crennan emphatically denied HSV had plans to do a hot six-cylinder model last year and at this stage the company line hasn't changed.

So that leaves Typhoon as the only locally built, high performance six-cylinder sedan for now. We reckon it's better than the GT and HSV's 6.0-litre V8s, but whether that affects their sales, or, like FPV's David Flint reckons, opens up a whole new performance market, only time will tell.

Fact of the matter is since the F6's launch in late 2004 (and despite the sales freeze on the car) FPV has taken the sales fight right up to HSV. Should the F6 cars in both or either versions turn out to be a sales success (FPV would like to sell 200 Tornados and 600 Typhoons in 05) we would be prepared to bet on the arrival of a twin or single turbo version of Holden's HF (high-feature) V6 wearing an HSV badge.

Prodrive COO Clive Scrivener visiting Oz for the Tornado launch openly compared the sedan to some of the best European marques have to offer. Though that might be draw too long a bow for even the blue bloods at FPV.

ON THE ROAD
FPV's hot six contender was one of the most anticipated car releases in 2004. And after a brief drive of one of the first production cars on some windy roads in Melbourne's outer west, it was worth the wait.

Now after another launch drive, we're as convinced as ever that this is the pick of the current crop of Australian muscle cars. Yep, it's that good - especially in Typhoon form.

Like its Falcon GT stablemate you press a starter button on the dash to fire up the Typhoon's hi-tech engine. But unlike the GT's menacing V8 rumble at idle, there's barely a murmur from the turbo six.

Where the GT can struggle to get cleanly off the line the F6-engine cars hit their stride immediately, launching hard from standstill and accelerating like there's no tomorrow... Well, as long as the road is clean and grippy - on anything less than a perfect surface the TC light is blinking on the Typhoon's dash, and in the Tornado meantime the standard rear Dunlops get a fair thrashing... Smoke screen, anyone?

On the move acceleration is equally impressive, with strong response from any gear, at any speed. Indeed, driving either version is about leaving the gear lever alone and tapping into a truckload of torque that's available from seemingly just-off idle.

No need to keep 3000rpm or more on the tacho for rapid progress a la V8 -- even at 2200rpm (100km/h in sixth gear) a push of the throttle gets the scenery flashing before your eyes.

And if you do get serious and use the well-spaced six-speed gearbox, there's an audible beeper at 5700rpm to remind you to up-change before the rev-limiter cuts in at 6000rpm. Such is the way this engine builds revs that the beeper is far from a gimmick - it makes extracting maximum performance child's play.

But what's equally impressive is the smoothness and refinement at full flight - even in the cart-sprung utility version. Yes, the Typhoon's more refined (less road noise and mechanical noise) but the Tornado shares the overall aural signature of the sedan with just a hint of induction noise and enough turbo 'wooffle' at higher revs to get the blood pumping.

With 60kg less weight up front and more real world torque, the Typhoon feels lighter and more agile than its V8 GT stablemate. Ford's long had its Falcon-based chassis sorted out and the F6 twins are no exception. Steering is nicely weighted (if a little dead straight ahead) clutch and a crisp-shifting gearbox add to its user-friendly appeal.

Along with impressive straight-line acceleration the Typhoon offers flat and predictable handling, powerful braking, and lichen-like grip from its 18-inch Dunlop tyres. The live rear axle Tornado requires a bit more driver attention (especially if the roads are bumpy) but overall grip levels are very high. Ride quality of the sedan is superb over rough roads.

Typhoon and Tornado's styling may be a bit subdued for some, but up close it has a classy, almost European look. We especially liked the real metal grill inserts and overall the cars have just enough 'F6' bits inside and out to set them apart from the rest of the FPV range.