Future of Falcon still anyone's guess

The future of the Ford Falcon remains as clear as mud as executives on opposite sides of the world contradict each other.

Australia’s oldest automotive nameplate has been under scrutiny as sales have fallen to record lows in the past three years, prompting questions about the viability of the locally-made sedan beyond its current lifecycle.

At last week’s Frankfurt motor show, Ford’s global head of design told a group of Australian reporters: “In a couple of [motor] shows we can talk about it. This just isn’t the show to talk about [the future of the Falcon] but it won’t be too far away.”

It's not the first time Mays has been asked to prognosticate on the local-design Falcon.

However Ford Australia public affairs director, Sinead McAlary, says that J Mays was merely trying to fob-off reporters and that his comments should not have been taken literally.

“He was just trying to long-arm you guys, you all took it a little bit too literally,” she told motoring.com.au at the launch of the new Ford Ranger last week.

When Mays invited Australian journalists to ask him again in a couple of motor shows’ time, they calculated that to mean six months, given that Tokyo in November and Detroit in January are the next two majors.

But Sinead says, emphatically, that is not the case.

“I double-checked with [Ford] North America. There is nothing planned for the Detroit motor show that is any way related to the Falcon. There is literally nothing planned that you guys could even vaguely link to Falcon. Nothing.

“You’ve added up two and two and got seven.”

Meanwhile, in last week’s story out of Frankfurt, when Mays was asked if it was inevitable that the Australian-made Falcon would be replaced by a US-made Taurus, he said: “We haven’t announced that [but] we’re looking at a lot of different possibilities. That [combining Falcon and Taurus] would be one potentially feasible one. I do follow [Falcon sales figures] pretty closely. There’s not a big market for that size of sedan at the moment.”

Falcon sales are down 39 per cent in the first eight months of this year – after a record-low last year. But the company expects the Falcon’s fortunes will turn around with the arrival this month of the new LPG model (which accounts for 25 per cent of sedan sales and 45 per cent of ute sales) and the four-cylinder engine early next year.

Contrary to some reports, the four-cylinder engine will not replace the six-cylinder engine in the Falcon line-up, it will be sold alongside the existing model range.

Meanwhile there is still no news on the return of the XR8 after it was discontinued in June 2010 because Ford did not update it to meet Euro IV emissions – leaving Ford Performance Vehicles with the only V8 option for Ford fans.

Ford says it has not ruled out a return of the XR8 – but nor has it forecast a revival.

— with staff

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