Falcon's Future In Doubt

[NB4C]

  bunna said:

Too much stuff in the way in the I6 engine configuration to easily (cheaply) offer LHD

Yeah, guess the I6 is an obstacle. But here's the thing, some BMWs use I6 engines, and they are made in both RHD and LHD. Expensive Daewoo managed to pull it off with their V6 and V8 commodores, rebadged as Pontiac in the US. I think it's quite possible, but it'd require quite a large investment to pull off.

Edited 24/01/09 01:43 PM by never_buy_4cylinder

[Venom XR6]

  bunna said:

Too much stuff in the way in the I6 engine configuration to easily (cheaply) offer LHD

Not really. The FG is package protected for LHD, which means there is nothing in a structural way that can stop a LHD version. They were set to invest a whole heap of money into the FG to make it in a LHD version, but once again Detroit denied them a market to sell it in, so it never went ahead.

f*ck Detroit, its their fault the Falcon has never been exported, they continually deny it a market to protect their piece of crap 30 year old chassis Crown Victoria. But the good news is that come 2012 the Crown Vic can't pass new safety regs due to its ancient platform, and due to global RWD being dropped it opens up a possible market for Falcon in the Middle East.

Allan Mullaly knows how good the FG is, he had a G6E Turbo as his personal car for a while in Detroit because he loved it so much.

[dlfswi]

  Venom XR6 said:

Yes, your right, the Taurus was replaced by the 500, but that bombed so they changed the name to Taurus to help it sell, but it was still FWD and AWD.

How much you want to bet the 500 was FWD? Next you will be telling me the Lincoln LS is FWD too.

Edited 24/01/09 11:25 PM by dlfswi

[dlfswi]

  dlfswi said:

How much you want to bet the 500 was FWD? Next you will be telling me the Lincoln LS is FWD too.

That's how much you want to bet the 1st Ford 500 was FWD?

[bunna]

EDIT - taken to PM to avoid clutter

Edited 25/01/09 01:38 AM by bunna

[dlfswi]

Just think in these time of bad economies around the world for Ford the moneys they have spent on building and creating the new Taurus could have been spent engineering a LHD XR6 and exporting it all over the world. All Ford had to do is look under the hood of a BMW M3 LHD in the US market and figure it out from there. But Ford thinks they are smarter than everyone else in the cars business, sad, sad, sad.

[Venom XR6]

  dlfswi said:

How much you want to bet the 500 was FWD? Next you will be telling me the Lincoln LS is FWD too.

How much money have you got, cause I'll take it all. 500 was FWD with AWD optional.

http://www.edmunds.com/ford/fivehundred/review.html

Being on the DEW98 platform shared with the Jag S type, the Lincoln LS is RWD. Ford Australia investigated using this platform in the late 90's for Falcon, I even saw Lincoln LS LHD evaluation models driving out of the Product Engineering Offices. It was too expensive for Ford to use for the Falcon, mostly because the platform used significant levels of aluminium in the suspension and chassis.

Edited 27/01/09 08:33 AM by Dagabond

[Donald French]

You'd loose your money the 1st Ford 500 was built in 1960-62 and was raced in American, one of the original Ford 500s is in a private car collection in England. I believe it was the show Gear Head that did a show on it about the time Ford released the new 500 here in the US. Oh and it was a RWD.

[Venom XR6]

We're not talking about that one thought, we're referring to the last one from a few years ago.

[dlfswi]

Doesn't really mater to me I agree with you guys it's an ugly car compared to the XR6. And the new one isn't doing much for me either.