Ford Finally Pulls The Plug On Australian Manufacturing

by Derek Kreindler

Published: May 23rd, 2013

ford finally pulls the plug on australian manufacturing

A sad day for both Ford and Australia. The Blue Oval has officially announced an end to building cars in Australia, which Ford has done since the 1920s.

Both the Broadmeadows assembly plant and the Geelong engine plant will close in 2016, resulting in a loss of 1200 jobs. Declining sales of the Ford Falcon, and the expense of retooling Geelong to build engines that are complaint with Euro 5 emissions standards. Ford’s One Ford strategy, which seeks to eliminate regional specific models like the Falcon, also hastened the demise of Ford’s Australian manufacturing operations.

A rising Australian dollar has also been identified as a culprit, but Holden and Toyota are expected to continue their manufacturing operations in Australia despite this. Holden has even committed to a new generation of Commodore beyond the yet to be introduced VF – though it may not follow the traditional rear-drive Aussie sedan template, as smaller, more fuel-efficient cars have become popular in Australia.

Either way, Ford’s Australian operations have been on shaky ground for some time. Today is only a confirmation of what many thought was inevitable.

#Australia #Ford #FordFalcon #Industry #Jobs

Derek Kreindler

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14 of 68 comments

Chicagoland on May 23, 2013

"...because the car in the picture at the top of my page is the blandest of beigey McBlandmobiles..." Why the Falcon would flop if 'brought here'. Ford isn't an entertainment company for those who want to "see it here" but not actaully buy. Gear heads want old looking performance cars or [actual restored ones], and upper income car nuts want Euro, Euro, Euro names. Imagine the complaints about the prices. "I ain't paying no $40 K for a Ford that look like a Toyota!" Also, here, Falcon means economy compact, not 'muscle car'. And again, gear heads would say 'too many doors!'

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- Ajla on May 23, 2013
  
  "Why the Falcon would flop if ‘brought here’." It wouldn't be a success, but I doubt it could do any worse than the Taurus or the Flex.
  
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Patrick-bateman on Jun 01, 2013

Okay, okay, In defense of the Falcon, and to rebuff a lot of the ignorant comments about this car. That photo is seriously rubbish, and was lazily ripped from Wikipedia. Do a search on the XR series falcons, and you can see that with the right spec, they are an attractive vehicle. In terms of saying it is really old car, if you claim it to be a development of the EA Falcon, which some people do because of the under bonnet packaging, yep it is old. Not one piece of it is transferable to an EA, but yes the EA was introduced in 1988, and signed off in 1985. Still a youngster compared to the Panther. In terms of the person who drove a Panther and a Falcon and thought the driving experience similar, I’m amazed. The Falcon is light years ahead of a Panther to drive. It should be. It is a monocoque construction, has a sophisticated Independent Rear Suspension, has a ZF 6 speed auto, and a choice of 4cylinder turbo, inline 6 cylinder, 6 cylinder turbo, V8, and V8 supercharged engines. Driving experience, handling etc, is comparable to Commodore/G8, but different. The ecoboost 4, is the best balanced of the lot, and is a really sweet thing to drive. The Mustang would have been lucky to have the Falcon under-pinnings as a base. If anything, it was too refined and sophisticated to be a Mustang. Some rubbish about how a Mustang has to have a live rear axle to be a Mustang. In terms of safety, it was the first locally produced 5 star ANCAP (roughly equivalent euro NCAP) car, and incredibly did it with the base model, which at that time didn’t have curtain airbags as standard, and got the bonus 2 points for the pole test. At that time the base VE Commodore was 4 star rated. In terms of a business case, if it had been LHD, it would have additionally had application in the Middle East and South America, just like Commodore/G8. RIP Falcon ….

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- CJinSD on Jun 02, 2013
  
  Australians probably aren't ignorant of Falcon realities, and they have no interest in buying the things. All this sophistication talk is rich. European big Fords had independent rear suspensions from 1966. That isn't a typo. I'd have thought that at least the XF Falcon would have had it, looking like a knockoff of the Granada MKII. Nope. BTW, there is little special about a rear suspension that is built to work with a chassis modified from a solid axle set up. Wasn't true for the Triumph TR4, wasn't true for the old Mustang Cobra. Surely engines have been exciting since back in the days of the Gt-Ho? Nah. Rule changed meant that homologation specials weren't needed for the racing series, so Falcon engines were as lame as malaise-era Detroit stuff for decades. Car and Driver tested the turbo-6 Falcon a few years ago, trying to make their readers feel some sort of sense of loss for not having them. The performance was strong, other than that its observed fuel economy was right down with Bentleys and Bugattis. It wasn't fast or special enough to justify that. RIP Falcon? They still make the indifferent things. Buy one if you're so broken up.
  
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- RobertRyan on Jun 02, 2013
  
  @CJinSD "Car and Driver tested the turbo-6 Falcon a few years ago, trying to make their readers feel some sort of sense of loss for not having them. " Very good write up by Car and Driver at the time and they lamented the absolute crud that US Ford drivers had to put up with. http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/ford-falcon-xr6-turbo-specialty-file
  
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- CJinSD on Jun 02, 2013
  
  @RobertRyan Fortunately, there have been better alternatives to Fords here since at least 1924. The XR6 was pretty quick by 2004 standards, but 12 mpg was cartoonishly bad even when gas was a buck a gallon. Was the 5.4 liter V8 as gluttonous in real world use? The price was out of line with its desirability too.
  
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- RobertRyan on Jun 02, 2013
  
  @CJinSD "Was the 5.4 liter V8 as gluttonous in real world use?" Sure was, it was a whole lot worse that is why Turbo 6 well and truly outsold it and had far better mileage. iI would love to know what YOUR BETTER FORDS were?
  
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- Outback_ute on Jul 06, 2013
  
  @CJinSD "BTW, there is little special about a rear suspension that is built to work with a chassis modified from a solid axle set up. Wasn’t true for the Triumph TR4, wasn’t true for the old Mustang Cobra." That was true of the AU IRS - a double wishbone layout, nothing wrong with that. But the rear of the bodyshell was completely re-engineered for the BA sedan (no live axle option) with straight rear chassis members and a big gain in strength. Re the XR6T fuel consumption - 12mpg is is roughly 19.5L/100, and you would have to work quite hard to get that on a public road, 18-20mpg would be a more realistic figure (note the quoted city figure) with 30mpg possible on the highway. How much street time did the C&D guys see versus the time spent on the strip and skidpan?
  
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Patrick-bateman on Jun 02, 2013

My comment was directed at ignorant people such as yourself. To compare the IRS in Falcon to the rudimentary IRS of the Mk4 Zephyr is pointless. People were making Panther vs Falcon comparisons, so I was comparing the relative sophistication between the 2. People were saying Falcon platform would not be sophisticated enough for Mustang. Wrong. In terms of falcon engines being the same as Malaise era fords, shows how little you know about the inline 6 development in Australia. 250 2V, crossflow, alloy head, EFI, didn't see any of these feature on the US 200. When you talk about the XF Falcon being a knock-off of the MK III Granada, I think you are out by about 5 years out either way. You of course meant XD Falcon vs Mk II Granada, or possibly EA Falcon versus MK III. Buy hey you know it all. Anything else you want to be proved wrong on ?

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- CJinSD on Jun 02, 2013
  
  The XF and XD Falcon both look like they're based on the Granada MK2, but neither have the underpinnings to match the European market Ford. The big 6 was making a thrilling 126 hp after improvements during the XD years. Yippee. In '83, the output went up to 149 hp, the same year you could get a Mustang with 175 hp. There's more to the world than developments of 1960 economy engines. I don't feel particularly proven wrong on anything. In fact, I'm beginning to question what your level of expertise is. By all indications, the Falcon is still available. Why don't you buy one instead of griping about the loss of something that's still available for the hundreds of people that care?
  
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- RobertRyan on Jun 02, 2013
  
  @CJinSD "There’s more to the world than developments of 1960 economy engines. I don’t feel particularly proven wrong on anything. In fact, I’m beginning to question what your level of expertise is. By all indications, the FALCON IS AVAILABLE." I do not know if you are a Ford NA apologist, but last FPV Turbo 6 had a power output of 410hp and 420lbs ft of torque at 1900rpm. The basic measurements of the Barra engine are the same as the original Falcon, that is about it. The IRS on the Falcon makes it a very nice tourer. The Granda is a generation behind in refinement.
  
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- Outback_ute on Jul 06, 2013
  
  @CJinSD The Falcon engine was heavily aimed at fuel economy and torque rather than power in those eras, redline at 4000rpm from memory - and it made the same torque as the Mustang despite significantly smaller capacity. That has persisted too - a couple of years ago there was a test of 1000km around Bathurst where the Falcon used 10% less fuel than the new Commodore 3.0 DI despite official figures that suggested the margin should have gone the other way.
  
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- Patrick-bateman on Jul 06, 2013
  
  @outback_ute I found the historical power comparisons that CJinSD made were laughable, comparing the power of a 5 litre V8 to that of a 4.1 6. In 1984 in ADR spec, the 4.1 put out 120KW, and the 5.0 Windsor 127KW. A little embarrassing that those extra cylinders and capacity could only generate 3% more power, especially given the validity of your point that Falcon engine was tuned for fuel economy and torque !
  
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Patrick-bateman on Jun 02, 2013

@CJinSD Pal, I have forgotten more about cars than you know. I'm also not stuck in a time warp reference MKII Granadas, which were in fact warmed over Mk 4 Zephyrs, and talking about them merits of semi trailing arm independent rear suspensions, which are even more irrelevant and dated than the Falcon engine. I'll clue you in, it is 2013, and not 1983. You do know there have been 3 generations of Falcon, since the XD/XF series you seem to use as your frame of reference. I'm sad the Falcon is going, I'm sadder that twits like you troll the internet proclaiming all your dated knowledge and prejudice. Have you even driven a current Falcon ?

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