FPV needs a BMW-basher

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One company offers Australian buyers the opportunity to purchase a premium rear-wheel-drive large car powered by an inline six -- and from a price of around $65,000. Here's a tip, it's not BMW -- but it is a company with a three-letter abbreviation for a name.

It's FPV -- Ford Performance Vehicles. The company sells the F6 sedan, a vehicle based on Ford's FG Falcon, but with a hyper-intense turbocharged six-cylinder engine, developing a whopping 565Nm of torque. Not only is the torque immense, it's on tap across a very wide rev range and there's virtually no turbo lag. The fact that the engine sounds fabulous is icing on the cake.

So, the F6 is a good package for the asking price. But FPV also sells a V8-engined luxury car, the GT E -- itself based on the FG Falcon too. Now you might ask, so what?

The 'what' is FPV has this magnificent turbo six (allied with the leading edge ZF six-speed automatic) and the company is not fitting it to a premium grade car such as the GT E.

FPV argues that such a car would be cutting the lunch of Ford's Falcon G6E Turbo. If such a car were to be developed, it would need to be a much higher level of trim to distance itself from the G6E Turbo.

On this very point, Rod Barrett, FPV's MD, told the Carsales Network: "We're going to wait a while for things to settle down", before considering a premium grade F6 sedan.

"I'd rather do an 'F6 R'," he said. That would be an F6 sedan with a highly focused sports orientation and upgraded suspension, developed for track work.

In other words, FPV believes its future lies with buyers who are also motorsport enthusiasts. But does this not leave a large, untapped market of people who want powerful and refined luxury cars -- and have no specific interest in motorsport?

Given the F6 engine already develops 40kW more power than the G6E Turbo, there's a starting point right there for an argument in favour of an F6 E. Add to this hypothetical car's specification standard satellite navigation (already available as an option for the GT E) and multiple choices of interior trimmings or some easily incorporated high-tech features and you've probably done enough to distance the car from the G6E Turbo.

Potentially too, upmarket buyers might be prepared to purchase a car like this -- without a true Ford badge on it.

Where are the benefits for FPV?

Straight away, this car would attract more than exuberant race-goers and V8 fans. In itself, it could change the whole perception of the FPV brand as well as opening up new market niches. Ultimately, that helps the bottom line.

At the present, FPV branding is very specific and the company conquests very few sales from HSV. Nor does the company's management admit to seeing any other companies as direct competitors, whereas HSV will freely confess that 20 per cent of all sales come from buyers trading in a premium-brand German car.

Is it time for FPV to start thinking and acting along similar lines?

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