5.4 dohc in Aussie Ford Falcon

stimmler

Founding Member
Mar 21, 2002
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We are getting screwed. In the new car and driver they have a review on the australian Ford Falcon. Base engine is a 5.4L DOHC V8 349 hp and 368 trq. Its called the "Boss 260". Why does ford not put this in any US cars?

Optional engine is a intercooled turbocharged inline 6 DOHC VCT 322hp 332 trq putting this taurus sized car to 60 in 5.9 sec.
 
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i know! i just read it! that is a hot car that ford would have no prob selling here! plus i always thought that the falcon name was pretty cool. does anyone know if aussie's have a current version of the mustang? or is this kick butt falcon all they get?
 
Actually they do not have a version of the Mustang any longer. They were given one in 2002 which was a rebadged right hand drive version of the 2001 SVT Cobra but it was overpriced there due to limited production, reingineering, and shipping costs, and failed miserably so the plug was pulled after one year. Ford Austrailia and their FPV subsidiary formally known as Ford Tickford (kind of an Austrailian SVT) have been making a lot of V8 powered high performance Falcons, Utes and Farilane/LTD's for quite awhile. In 2002 they had several high performance Falcons, the 5.0L powered XR8, turbo inline 6 powered XR6 and the Tickford TE50 and TS50, and Tickford's top Falcon was T3 5.6L (347ci) making 335 hp and 368 ft-lbs of torque! In 2003 they switched to using 5.4L DOHC engines! I don't think Ford North America even knows Ford Austrailia exists to not bring us these cars! Instead of making the new 500 a fwd/weak 3.0L v6 car built off a volvo they should have reworked the Austrailian falcons and brought some of these rwd 5.4L DOHC's here, what better to battle the Hemi powered Chrysler 300's/Dodge Magnum/Chargers's and upcoming V8/rwd Zeta cars from GM! Come on Ford! :nice:

Check these sites out for more: http://www.ford.com.au/
http://www.fpv.com.au/
 
thats what I'm sayin. you can get a hemi or a vette motor in anything, yet ford won't put a worthwhile engine in anything. That is why the marauder failed, it should have had the superchargered cobra motor or a dohc 5.4 like they obviously already had in another car.
 
Ford is notorious for having a bunch of sweet crap over seas that they don't offer over here. Take the Foci in Europe for example. This is confusing though. The 500 is going to be FWD. The Futura is going to be FWD. The Focus....FWD. The only RWD Fords are going to be the Mustang the decrepit Crown Vic, and the trucks. We can only hope that the S197 platform gets morphed into a nice RWD sedan with some power. Meh....not gonna happen. This sucks GM is going to have the Impala RWD,the GTO RWD, Monte Carlo RWD, Vette RWD. I think even that Solstice thingy is going to be RWD.
 
78Mach1 said:
not to mention it's going to to be light weight, and targeted under $20,000 to compete with Miata for the small Vert market

I would still be surprised if they could bring that car in under $20k. Even if it is marignally more than that, and handles as well as it looks, they'll sell a lot of them. The fact that, at $20k, they are undercutting the miata and MR Spyder by a few grand doesn't hurt either.

I'll reserve judgment until I see a production version. Right now, chances are 50/50 whether or not it'll be trash or not.
 
I like the falcon so much. That I hate the idea of having to play devil's advocate against it. But... Does Ford really need a failure such as the GTO? It's also australian, powerful V8, and RWD. And there is 158 day supply of them. That's nearly 6 months. Which means that half of it's production is sitting on dealer floors or in storage. Not a very good argument for a powerful sedan. And to say that the marauder failed because they didn't put a worthwhile engine in it. Is not exactly a factual argument. Especially looking at the current GTO problem. Ford is likely not in any hurry to compete in the 350hp family sedan market. Given those 2 problem cars. But the other question is. Would you buy the falcon AND an 05 mustang? Or would they then be competing for the sale to you as well.
 
I wouldn't suggest the Falcon itself or the Fairlane but a new car on a new platform with a similar formula of rwd/V8 optional sedan but designed and built here for the North American market. Offer a V6 standard and a 3 valve 4.6L as a lower engine option, and a DOHC or 3 valve 5.4L as the top option. With GM's Zeta cars and Chrysler's current and upcomming LX cars Ford will be at a disadvantage without a car of similar formula. They are handicapping themselves with the front drive architecture on the 500, granted awd will be optional but it is doubtful anything beyond a 3.0L V6 will. Even Honda's Accord has a powerful 3.5L V6 and most of the direct competiton is using 3.5-3.6L V6's. And the Crown Vic isn't in the running on an anctient platform. Obviuosly as the GTO has showed us much more than a bit of engine retuning and rebadging would be needed for an austrailian car to be succesful here although many of the GTO's shortcommings are much more due to things such as bland jellybean styling that has no resemblance to any previous GTO accept for the side badges, awkward single outlet for dual exhaust, and it is a coupe only so definatly the 4 door practicality isnt there, but the rwd/V8 formula is not a shortcomming or reason for loss of sales for the GTO. Now the 500 could be a total success in its own right and is a fine looking car so maybe I will be proven wrong but as Ford's top competitors are moving away from large front drive sedans Ford is sticking with it and it seems as though they are being left behind if the Chrysler 300's early success is any gauge. Unfortunalty now Ford is commtied to the 500 so it will probably be sometime till they could even consider doing anything like this. Americans want rwd/V8 sedans again and it appears as though Ford will be missing the boat with the 500.
 
the only reason people complain about the GTO's styling specifically is because the GTO SHOULD be a much mroe styled car. Its a legendary muscle car, it should at least look the part. Had they named it anything else, no one would complain. It would jsut be a conservatively styled, powerful sedan. They brought this on themselves by calling it a GTO.
 
SadbutTrue said:
the only reason people complain about the GTO's styling specifically is because the GTO SHOULD be a much mroe styled car. Its a legendary muscle car, it should at least look the part. Had they named it anything else, no one would complain. It would jsut be a conservatively styled, powerful sedan. They brought this on themselves by calling it a GTO.

I agree with you. It is one of the GTO's major reasons for poor sales. A lot of prospective buyers were turned off by the styling. I dont think anyone would care if a Ford Falcon looked anything like a classic Ford Falcon I know I wouldn't.
 
I would personally prefer Fairlane, but I am a bit biased :D

A Falcon would be great though... anything that increases the volume of sales of RWD Fords will help the Mustang by spreading out development costs. Building suspension components, transmissions, engines, etc for one car might be a bit pricey, but spread that out over two cars that are in different sales brackets and then you have something.

Edit: for spelling and clarity
 
I read the article last night in C&D. There was a rumor that the Falcon could come over here but of course instead were getting a F***ing version of the Volvo S80 called the Five Hundred. Its nice but geez! Ford needs something to really compete with the new Chrysler LX Vehicles (Magnum & 300C). That would be really cool to see the Falcon come over here. :nice:
 
It all depends on what model you are talking about.
http://www.fpv.com.au/index.asp?link_id=2.390&parent_id=364
Without options. That is ANY options. The GT-P which has the 5.4 engine. MSRP's for $69,850.00 So now we go to
http://www.xe.com/ucc/ And we do the conversion.
69,850.00 AUD Australia Dollars= 49,151.42 USD United States Dollars.

So in a sense you are right. Straight from Australia they would not cost $40k. It would be $50k

And actually it is wrong. The base model is NOT the 5.4 it is a 4.0
http://www.ford.com.au/showroom/passenger/Passenger_Vehicles.asp
The regular non-performance version of the falcon with the 5.4 goes for $51k. Which is nearly $36k before any options.
I will say though. You get a pretty nice list of options to choose from.