Aussie Muscle!

[DFB]

If I could nit pick the above car a tad it would be this, they didn't take full advantage of the flaired wheel wells. Those wheels could use some more offset to give it a "flush" look, maybe another +15mm

Either way these special editions are truely SPECIAL

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Ford were and still are deeply conservative. At one stage the local team had to gain approval to specify a lower ride height on a particular high performance model because doing so would have breached the internal Ford limit. Silly stuff like that meant pretty much all Falcons sat up on their toes.

It was at its worst on the FG onwards utes, the rear wheels were buried inside the arches.

[Desertnate]

You are correct, the Falcon remained RWD till it was retired in late 2016. The taunting was from a rather narrow-minded person, completely un-aware of the world outside of what he knew. That was one of the drivers of this thread, a lot of people don’t know about these cars outside of Australia or the roles they played in peoples lives....

Holy cow that's a lot of info. Thanks! Are you a curator for the Australian Ford museum?

I remember many years ago spotting an Australian spec Falcon on the road and admiring the car. You might not want to hear this, but I always liked the Holden's too. Forbidden fruit for those of us in the US.

I think my most memorable exposure to the Falcon is watching them do battle with the Holden's in the V8 Supercar races at events like the Bathurst and others. Speed TV (who remembers that cable channel) used to show the races, or at least segments of them. It was like a mash up of sportscar racing and NASCAR on road circuits. Great stuff.

[DFB]

Holy cow that's a lot of info. Thanks! Are you a curator for the Australian Ford museum?

I remember many years ago spotting an Australian spec Falcon on the road and admiring the car. You might not want to hear this, but I always liked the Holden's too. Forbidden fruit for those of us in the US.

I think my most memorable exposure to the Falcon is watching them do battle with the Holden's in the V8 Supercar races at events like the Bathurst and others. Speed TV (who remembers that cable channel) used to show the races, or at least segments of them. It was like a mash up of sportscar racing and NASCAR on road circuits. Great stuff.

I WISH I WAS! Just a life long passion for the product. The Falcon was generally always the underdog in the fight, I guess I can relate to that personally and perhaps why I gravitated towards the Ford side.

I like the Holdens too, they did certain things better, certain things worse. In general, they kept the V8 engine in the Commodore while Ford abandoned it. Holden won a lot of sales with that strategy in the longer term. If you looked at and aspired to a V8 Holden in the late 80's as a child, chances were you would then go on to buy one a decade later. Ford lost a generation of enthusiast sales over that period.

[Klasse Act]

Ford were and still are deeply conservative. At one stage the local team had to gain approval to specify a lower ride height on a particular high performance model because doing so would have breached the internal Ford limit. Silly stuff like that meant pretty much all Falcons sat up on their toes.

It was at its worst on the FG onwards utes, the rear wheels were buried inside the arches.

Ford conservative, don't I know, my first new car was a 2000 Ford Contour SVT. This car could've been more with better seats, 17" wheels and a 3.0L instead of the 2.5L, ohh yeah a Torsen LSD too

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[DFB]

This might now be my favorite Falcon, WOW! This is like a Falcon going to 11 whereas the XR6 is a 10 These are certainly rare, I bet all the owners know each other even!

This car looks like a Lotus Carlton (Commadore) of the same era, it must've been quite a battle each year, blow by blow and who was going to have the best response next️

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There was an article published in one of the local magazines (Wheels) a couple of years ago interviewing two key staff from Ford and Holden who held management positions during the 90's and early 2000's. Both were adamant the rivalry between the brands spurred each side on to make the cars better and faster, ultimately a big plus for those who were buying the product.

[DFB]

Love all the colors

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Ooooh, you are going to regret making that comment! Color is one the biggest interests I have in life, I don't know why color is important to me, I just love the variations color brings to life. You will notice a lot of RED in my posts, it's become a color that signifies confidence and happiness to me...........we all want more of that in our lives so that's why I have 3 red cars, red shoes, red phone cover, red computer mouse, red coffee machine, red.............you get the point.

During the 1970's, the automotive landscape was made up of a variety of interesting and wild colors. In those days, you could almost have any color you wanted.











As the 1980's flowed into the 90's, exciting color seemed to be a thing of the past. Holden reignited the color war with what they called 'hero colors' for the VT Commodore in 1998. Tigar Mica and Hyper yellow clearly resonated with buyers and was certainly noticed within Ford. (At this point I apologize for the Ford heavy content, while I certainly studied every move Holden made, it was the Ford side I supported.)





In late 2001, Ford released a color called Blueprint, a color that would start a decade of hot color options for the Falcon. Blueprint was actually a BA Falcon color that was released on the last AU models to stimulate sales and give a teaser at what was to come.

This pic is of a AU Series III T3 TS50, a car that I had the pleasure of owning for a couple of years (The TS50 had a story behind it's development, something that warrants a lengthy post on it own) -






As I mentioned in a previous post, the 2002 BA Falcon was to be the savior for the brand. The company left no stone unturned in releasing a car with no excuses. The visionary local managing of Ford Australia during those years, the late Geoff Polites, was quoted as saying he wanted to make the Falcon the most popular used car in the country. His reasoning behind that was if people were desiring Falcon's on the used market, that meant people would be buying new ones down the track. His vision was to invest heavily into V8 Supercar Racing and making sure that people WANTED to buy a Falcon rather than just being given one as part of their job or in the back seat of taxi. Higher performance models with aggressive styling and wild colors were a big part of that strategy. Where Holden had one main "hero" color, Ford had several of them all at once. At the same time, the Tickford line became FPV, think of it like BMW M or AMG Mercedes.

Blueprint became a staple of the Falcon color palate for a number of years, here seen on the reborn Falcon GT with the optional silver stripes, and the Pursuit Ute -





The return of stripes to a Falcon was actually a last minute addition owing to a vocal outcry for them to be added to the options lists. FPV responded with the simple two equal width stripes but would go on to make them more prominent over the next decade, some were very bold while others merely complimented the lines of the car.



Other interesting colors included -

Phantom Purple -



Blood Orange (Note the cheeky reference to taming a lion..........the Holden logo was a lion) -



Citric Acid -



Acid Rush -



Ford would go on to offer some pretty wild color options for the remainder of the BA, BA MK II, BF and BF MK II models. Often, you could color coordinate the interior trim to the exterior color.

Here are a couple of the more bold offerings -

Envi (get it?) -



Menace with orange stripes (I tip my hat to anyone who ordered this spec) -



Bionic Blue and Toxic Green -



Rapid Yellow -



Octane -



The BF MK II also signaled the return of overhead stripes on the Cobra (Winter White and Blue) and 40th Anniversary GT (Silhouette Black and Gold) -





The momentum continued with the release of the next generation Falcon, the FG. Some colors carried over, having been released early on the BF MK II to spur sales until the new model was launched.

Dash Green -



Breeze -



Nitro -



Vixen Red with Gold stripes -



Octane was one of my favorites on the FG range, here shown on the FPV F6 -



By the time the announcement to close the factories was made, the amount of daring color options had diminished to a couple of key choices. Clearly, Ford had made the decision to halt any further R&D on the Falcon, color choice was one of those moves. Still, some colors stood out in a sea of neutral, staple tones.

Viper -



Swift -



The daring FPV GT R-Spec in Silhouette and Red -





By the time the FG-X launched, the only two bright colors were Victory Gold and Kinetic Blue -





My choice would end up being the stunning Emperor Red though -









This last pic shows off some of the gold undertones that Emperor has -



So did the wild colors work? As a whole, mostly yes. Private buyers gravitated to these bold choices as a way of expressing themselves and separating a basic white sedan from a high performance XR or GT.

[Big Dave]

Ooooh, you are going to regret making that comment! Color is one the biggest interests I have in life, I don't know why color is important to me, I just love the variations color brings to life. You will notice a lot of RED in my posts, it's become a color that signifies confidence and happiness to me...........we all want more of that in our lives so that's why I have 3 red cars, red shoes, red phone cover, red computer mouse, red coffee machine, red.............you get the point.

During the 1970's, the automotive landscape was made up of a variety of interesting and wild colors. In those days, you could almost have any color you wanted.











As the 1980's flowed into the 90's, exciting color seemed to be a thing of the past. Holden reignited the color war with what they called 'hero colors' for the VT Commodore in 1998. Tigar Mica and Hyper yellow clearly resonated with buyers and was certainly noticed within Ford. (At this point I apologize for the Ford heavy content, while I certainly studied every move Holden made, it was the Ford side I supported.)





In late 2001, Ford released a color called Blueprint, a color that would start a decade of hot color options for the Falcon. Blueprint was actually a BA Falcon color that was released on the last AU models to stimulate sales and give a teaser at what was to come.

This pic is of a AU Series III T3 TS50, a car that I had the pleasure of owning for a couple of years (The TS50 had a story behind it's development, something that warrants a lengthy post on it own) -






As I mentioned in a previous post, the 2002 BA Falcon was to be the savior for the brand. The company left no stone unturned in releasing a car with no excuses. The visionary local managing of Ford Australia during those years, the late Geoff Polites, was quoted as saying he wanted to make the Falcon the most popular used car in the country. His reasoning behind that was if people were desiring Falcon's on the used market, that meant people would be buying new ones down the track. His vision was to invest heavily into V8 Supercar Racing and making sure that people WANTED to buy a Falcon rather than just being given one as part of their job or in the back seat of taxi. Higher performance models with aggressive styling and wild colors were a big part of that strategy. Where Holden had one main "hero" color, Ford had several of them all at once. At the same time, the Tickford line became FPV, think of it like BMW M or AMG Mercedes.

Blueprint became a staple of the Falcon color palate for a number of years, here seen on the reborn Falcon GT with the optional silver stripes, and the Pursuit Ute -





The return of stripes to a Falcon was actually a last minute addition owing to a vocal outcry for them to be added to the options lists. FPV responded with the simple two equal width stripes but would go on to make them more prominent over the next decade, some were very bold while others merely complimented the lines of the car.



Other interesting colors included -

Phantom Purple -



Blood Orange (Note the cheeky reference to taming a lion..........the Holden logo was a lion) -



Citric Acid -



Acid Rush -



Ford would go on to offer some pretty wild color options for the remainder of the BA, BA MK II, BF and BF MK II models. Often, you could color coordinate the interior trim to the exterior color.

Here are a couple of the more bold offerings -

Envi (get it?) -



Menace with orange stripes (I tip my hat to anyone who ordered this spec) -



Bionic Blue and Toxic Green -



Rapid Yellow -



Octane -



The BF MK II also signaled the return of overhead stripes on the Cobra (Winter White and Blue) and 40th Anniversary GT (Silhouette Black and Gold) -





The momentum continued with the release of the next generation Falcon, the FG. Some colors carried over, having been released early on the BF MK II to spur sales until the new model was launched.

Dash Green -



Breeze -



Nitro -



Vixen Red with Gold stripes -



Octane was one of my favorites on the FG range, here shown on the FPV F6 -



By the time the announcement to close the factories was made, the amount of daring color options had diminished to a couple of key choices. Clearly, Ford had made the decision to halt any further R&D on the Falcon, color choice was one of those moves. Still, some colors stood out in a sea of neutral, staple tones.

Viper -



Swift -



The daring FPV GT R-Spec in Silhouette and Red -





By the time the FG-X launched, the only two bright colors were Victory Gold and Kinetic Blue -





My choice would end up being the stunning Emperor Red though -

There's an FG FPV GT in Octane hidden in a garage a couple of streets from me, it's in pieces, but still drivable. The owner was telling me he tries to get it out the garage and drive it up and down the street every so often, but the neighbours complain about the noise. I pass his house every day when I'm walking my dogs.


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[Coatingsarecrack]

Nice historic write up on some very cool muscle. We don’t get the love the rest of the world has for performance sedans and wagons…. Crying shame.


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[Klasse Act]

Wow Deyon, your passion and knowkedge about your homeland cars is unmatched, wish Marc could've gotten you on the podcast!

That orange FPV F6 has a really cool treatment under the headlights, bet that's really intimidating coming up behind you️

The very first Falcon you posted made me day outloud "Last of the V8's"

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[DFB]

Wow Deyon, your passion and knowkedge about your homeland cars is unmatched, wish Marc could've gotten you on the podcast!

That orange FPV F6 has a really cool treatment under the headlights, bet that's really intimidating coming up behind you️

The very first Falcon you posted made me day outloud "Last of the V8's"

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The black/grey treatment under the lights of FPV FG models ended up being termed the "panda eyes". This painted contrast was a feature of the GT, Pursuit and F6 models. Depending on the model, the color ranged from pewter grey to black.











There were a couple of versions that got those sections painted in body color, each loosing some of that aggression.

The GT-E and F6-E were more luxurious models that retained the performance but were more discrete about it -





The GT Black was another -



As was the GT R-Spec -