Comments on: Ford Australia Freaked by FoMoCo’s US RWD Platform Plans

By: JPD80

JPD80 — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:22:23 +0000

Justin,
I don’t know where you get your info from but a few things need to be set straight for the record:

1. The FG Falcon is left hand drive preserved, which means all the hard work in re routing fixtures for LHD is done. Apart from a dash module which includes wipers, steering, HVAC and Human machine interface, everything is pretty much there.

2. Far from being Freaked out, Ford Australia are laughing their asses off about this article.
See, they’ve already started GRWD.

keep the accurate reports coming.

By: TriShield

TriShield — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:49:33 +0000

The Falcons they use as taxis and the XR and luxury models sold to the public are almost entirely different animals.

When I was in Sydney a couple of years ago the base Falcon was a common taxi there. The XR6T I drove at City Ford was a generation newer and a superb car in every respect, even the interior was nicely trimmed and laid out.

Yes, Ford has RWD expertise in the US but aside from the Ford GT it has never yielded anything mainstream that comes close to rivaling the Falcon in any respect. Australia produces much better American style cars than America does.

By: hansbos

hansbos — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:41:39 +0000

I don’t know what everyone sees in these falcons. I sat in the backseat of one a couple of times in its taxi form in New Zealand and was not impressed at all. The interior and the whole feel of the car felt like a 1990s Opel.

By: jthorner

jthorner — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:15:00 +0000

I thought that Ford was committed to World Platforms ever since the massive “Ford 2000″ reorganization program of the 1990s. Having Australia-only engine and platform designs is simply stupid as it isn’t that large of a market.

I guess that the stories of endless turf wars amongst the various pieces of the Ford Kingdom have some real truth to them. Ford has a great deal of RWD engineering and production expertise in the US. Between the trucks, SUVS, Mustang and Panther platform the vast majority of Ford’s North American production is in fact RWD. The recently departed Lincoln LS was on a relatively modern RWD platform which was shared with Jaguar. Why the Mustang and LS/Jag are on different platforms is a mystery as well.

By: Facebook User

Facebook User — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:54:30 +0000

I don’t trust Ford North America to do anything but fail.

Leave the RWD, V8 cars to people who know what they are doing.

By: yankinwaoz

yankinwaoz — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:08:33 +0000

Can’t make a Falcon LWD?.. I call bullshit. I suspect it is an excuse to ignore the obvious solution.

By: TriShield

TriShield — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:59:52 +0000

The Falcon could have been made left-hand drive with additional investment.

Ford US was going to provided millions to Ford AU to re-engineer their FG Falcon structure for both left and right-hand drive then decided against it.

As a result the new FG Falcon is right-hook only.

Ford AU is losing their excellent inline six turbo to Ford’s upcoming twin-turbo V6. Next they might lose the lion’s share of their engineering capacity.

To stay afloat Ford AU is retooling to assemble the Euro Focus for local consumption. But they badly need an export program to other countries which Holden has been enjoying for years. Without additional investment that isn’t going to happen.

It’s a shame too, the new FG Falcon range is quite nice and I’d likely buy that over anything with a Gilette grille Ford US could come up with.

By: jgh

jgh — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:42:47 +0000

Has anybody noticed that the US is now becoming an “emerging market”? Weak dollar, production capacity, plentiful engineers… we’ve played “Trading Spaces” with China and India. Amazing and sad how we’ve self destructed.

By: Mike66Chryslers

Mike66Chryslers — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:08:44 +0000

What is their determining factor that the Falcon CANNOT be built as left-hand drive? In the past lots of vehicles that were designed as LHD were converted to RHD to satisfy Aussie import requirements.

By: guyincognito

guyincognito — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:28:33 +0000

Oh come on, they have nothing to worry about. Like Ford would develop a(nother) whole new RWD platform and make it usable for more than 1 product cylce or market…

By: Stingray

Stingray — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:15:27 +0000

Keep that RWD thing to the Aussies… I think and sustain that converting it to LHD is CHEAPER than doing a new one from scratch…