Opinion divided on AWD large car: Ford

Ford Australia President Marin Burela has reiterated remarks made several months ago about all-wheel drive being one possibility for the Falcon or its successor.

Speaking at the launch of the Fiesta ECOnetic last week, Burela repeated comments on a subject he first raised over six months ago, at the opening of the ACART facility at Ford's proving grounds. His latest remarks -- suggesting that some prospective buyers might welcome all-wheel drive in Ford's locally-built large car -- were picked up by one media outlet and effectively presented as breaking news.

That has led some correspondents in online forums to speculate -- once more -- that Ford is considering the American market Taurus with all-wheel drive to replace the Falcon, post 2014. And let's not even talk about Ford dropping a V6 into the Mondeo -- all in order to provide a car capable of matching the Falcon for packaging, but also meeting the straight-line performance expectations of current Falcon owners, as well as complying with the 'One Ford' global production strategy.

What appears to have been forgotten is that Ford is already building an all-wheel drive car in Australia -- the Territory -- and that vehicle shares much with the Falcon, including its longitudinal engine mounting.

Furthermore, the Territory -- a vehicle deemed to be a passenger car as far as the federal government is concerned -- will comply with the Euro IV emission standard in July of 2010, when it adopts the same upgraded inline six slated for the FG Falcon at that time.

Ford Communications Manager, Sinead McAlary confirmed with the Carsales Network that the Territory will migrate to Euro IV then.

"[Territory] is classified as an SUV under VFACTS, but in terms of Australian Design Rules... it has met all passenger safety standards, so it's classified as a passenger vehicle," she said. "Now it will obviously -- in July next year -- get the updated, Euro IV I6 engine, so it will definitely become Euro IV-compliant."

That suggests that the SUV will align even closer still with the Falcon's mechanicals. Closer mechanical specification means cost savings for Ford also, of course. Now here's some speculation: if Burela's apparent hints that Ford might re-engineer the Falcon at some point down the track to accept Territory's all-wheel- drive system, wouldn't that also suggest that the Falcon Ute could be similarly equipped?

Looking at the sales figures for conventional pick-ups, 4x4 models (HiLux, Navara, etc) usually outsell 4x2 models. Could Ford effectively double sales of the car-derived Ute by offering 4x4 variants? Think of the fun you could have in a 4x4 Ute with the XR6 Turbo engine...

Then again, ask Toyota about the demand for a 4x4 hot rod LCV...

Back to the main issue; why does the adoption of all-wheel drive for the large car range -- including the light commercial variants -- necessarily mean the cessation of local production for the car in rear-wheel drive form or the end of the Falcon nameplate?

We asked McAlary to comment on what could be construed from Burela's remarks last week.

"That is the usual round of speculation," she responded.

"I'm sure what Marin said was that, as he said before, 'we're not in a position to have to decide what we're going to do'.

"There's a lot of people who say 'rear-wheel drive is the only way a Falcon could be'; there's others who say 'oh no, maybe we could do it with all-wheel drive'.

"There's a whole range of different options open to us but we're not any closer to making a decision on that at all."

McAlary has said in the past (see our previous report) that 'One Ford' allows regional offices to exercise a degree of autonomy, provided it is in the interests Ford locally and globally to do so.

Here's our view, on the basis that where there's smoke, there's fire -- and the fire in this instance appears to have been started by lightning striking twice in the same place.

With Marin Burela dropping hints twice in six months that all-wheel drive is on the agenda for a future large car, this suggests that Ford's Falcon market research has been concluded and the Ford President is possibly preparing everyone for an unexpected future scenario -- but not necessarily one in which the Taurus or the Mondeo figure large.

Given the smaller sales volumes for the Territory, we would anticipate that it will be subject to a seven-year model cycle, rather than the six-year cycle for the Falcon. This would allow Ford a longer period to amortise the Territory's unique engineering. If that's the case, the 2011 Territory would arrive three years ahead of the prospective end date for the FG-based Falcon range -- perhaps just enough time for Ford to develop a new Falcon range based on the Territory II's platform and underpinnings. Something like that has happened before...

Then again, maybe Aussie buyers would prefer a Taurus?