Seven iconic cars created by Aussie ingenuity

Australians have long been fans of a brawny muscle car. It’s almost as if it’s in our DNA.

Sadly, the bragging rights, brawls and Bathurst stoushes between Holden and Ford’s fiercest and fastest performance cars are behind us following the closure of the Australian automotive manufacturing industry over the past decade.

But one of the key players that helped create some of our finest, tyre-frying machines, Premcar, is still kicking goals long after the whistle was blown and Holden and Ford shut down their factories.

Premcar is Australia’s leading independent automotive engineering consultancy and, this weekend, celebrates its 25th anniversary.

It was first established as Tickford Vehicle Engineering on September 11, 1996, as a dedicated local engineering business to assist Ford Australia with the development of its expanding family of high-performance Falcons.

In 2002, it changed names to Prodrive Automotive Technology following a takeover of Tickford’s operations by the British motorsport and automotive engineering specialists.

Almost a decade later it adopted the Premcar name following a management buyout led by its current engineering director Bernie Quinn, director of business, commercial and finance Jim Jovanovski and former FPV programs manager Paul Cook.

Over the last quarter of a century, Premcar – and its former namesakes – has worked behind the scenes on thousands of top-secret engineering projects around the globe.

As it prepares to celebrate its silver anniversary, Quinn recalls the seven milestone machines that have cemented its place in Australia’s performance car pantheon.

“There was a perception that Tickford had the sand kicked in our face from HSV for far too long and we had one last chance to make something out of the old nail that was the Windsor V8,” said Quinn.

“The 5.6-litre ‘Stroker’ engine in the last TS50 was the first project that showcased our passion for performance and to cater specifically for Australian tastes. Prior to that, Tickford had a more subdued, European influence. The stroker proved we had balls.

“It was a great engine for the time, and I vividly remember driving it for the first time in a mule car. I turned out of the driveway in Campbellfield and the rear tyres lit up in a cloud of smoke. And, again, in second gear. It had so much torque and sounded bloody awesome.

“Tickford turned a pig’s ear into a velvet purse with that stroker engine.”

“The XR6 Turbo was such a massive achievement that it totally changed the perception of the Falcon – from the point of view of performance as well as overall refinement,” said Quinn.

“Before that, the six cylinder was pretty rough around the edges. It was alright at low engine speeds with good torque, but if you revved it past 3000rpm it felt like it was going to shake the car to pieces.

“The Barra turbo program was a huge challenge, but it completely transformed that engine and I reckon it was on par, in terms of driveability and overall refinement, with BMW’s benchmark sixes.”

“We were on fire at the turn of the century, and the revival of the Falcon GT and introduction of Ford Performance Vehicles was a big deal,” Quinn said.

“FPV knew we couldn’t half-arse it in order to live up to the heritage of Ford’s most iconic badge, and finding an engine solution within the Ford global catalogue that was right for the job wasn’t a simple task when trying to balance costs with the kind of performance that was necessary.

“Ironically, it looks like we were inspired by Mad Max’s Interceptor taking ‘a piece from this and a piece from that’ using the long-stroke block with quad-cam cylinder head configuration. It wasn’t light and it was fairly tall – which necessitated the now signature bonnet bulge – but the Boss V8 was a great engine and, along with the Barra six, certainly put us on the global engineering map.”

“It made perfect sense to turn the wick up on the turbo six to create the FPV F6 Typhoon, and it really came alive in the updated BF model when we added the ZF six-speed automatic option,” said Quinn.

“That powertrain combination was such a peach; the torque and driveability of the engine was so much more accessible, and that transmission was the best in the world at the time. The BF F6 was bloody fast, but also beautifully refined. That’s a fantastic car.”

“This was the last program we officially completed under the FPV joint venture between Prodrive and Ford Australia, and it was somewhat of a marker in the sand for us,” Quinn said.

“We’d already introduced the Miami supercharged V8, which was a huge achievement in itself. But we felt as though the package had flipped on its head and the GT now had more engine than chassis.

“So, we set about rectifying that with a raft of suspension upgrades, the addition of launch control and – finally – the ability to fit wider rear tyres. It was a revelation, and I think the FG R-SPEC is hugely under-rated today for what it did to improve the GT’s handling.”

“It’s probably no surprise that many of us were pushing to take the GT to even greater heights before it ceased production with a genuinely heroic swansong,” Quinn said.

“While that didn’t happen, we couldn’t let the work we had already done sit in the bottom drawer forever. In 2019, we bit the bullet and launched our own Holy Grail upgrade package that unleashed the Miami V8 to produce 483kW and 753Nm, creating Australia’s most powerful muscle car.

“I still drive one almost every day, and it is such a mega machine. What we’re most proud of though is how refined it is and easy to live with every day given the performance potential.

“It is the best the Falcon has ever been.

“Those that have one, or at least have driven one, know this is the ultimate Aussie muscle car.”

“Our partnership with Nissan Australia to create and manufacture the Navara N-TREK Warrior and, now, its successor in the Navara PRO-4X Warrior is hugely symbolic,” said Quinn.

“Firstly, it showcases Premcar’s abilities to be at the forefront of the ever-changing tastes for Australian car enthusiasts and, secondly, it brings us almost full circle back to our roots as a secondary manufacturer with the ability to produce specialised vehicles for the local market.

“We applied the same philosophies to dual-cab pick-ups as we have done to performance cars in the past; it rides, steers and corners better than the donor vehicle. It just sits higher off the ground with genuine off-road capability as well.

“The N-TREK Warrior gave Nissan a model variant in the fastest-growing sector of the dual-cab market that helped transform the Navara from being a challenger to a legitimate competitor. And the PRO-4X Warrior takes it to another level again.

“As a business we always try to create the ‘win-win’; it’s literally written into our company values. We’ve clearly been able to achieve that via our relationship with Nissan.

“It not only put Navara back in the game, it has taken Premcar back to our heyday with FPV and brought some international attention as well.”