A couple of comments that I made to a post today on The Car Connection (link in the title above). Several sites have picked up some pictures taken in Dearborn of a couple of new Australian Ford Falcons. Read the post. I think everybody is over-reacting by suggesting that this particular Falcon will be Fords new global rear wheel drive platform.
I've CC'd my comments to their post below:
"You’re reading way too much into these pictures. Ford has always had a wide array of their products from all around the world driving around Dearborn. Hang around Dearborn long enough and you’ll see any number of Fords that are not sold here and won’t be. There are a number of parking lots where they can be seen and photographed at almost any time!
Those two Falcons may be here for executive awareness, for help with emissions or crash testing (two things that Dearborn has done more extensively than Australia can), to test future developments of existing or new engines (we know the Aussies will get the Ecoboost twin-turbo V-6 for the Falcon in ~2 years, and a replacement for ye olde 5.4 is certainly coming up), or they may be here for benchmarking.
As for the “new” Falcon that is currently being rolled out in Australia, it’s not so much “new” as it is a “top-hat” refresh, to the same extent that next year’s F-150 is. This isn’t a new chassis at all, and it’s certainly not what would be ideal in a future world-wide and world-class rear wheel drive chassis. It’s severely dated, it has issues, and it certainly won’t match or exceed crash requirements here or in Europe. And look at that front overhang - indicative of a far-forward engine (compare and contrast that point to the G8, for example). So whatever the new platform is, it’s not this platform and these shots aren’t even of a mule of any new platform.
Don’t get me wrong - I admire what the Australians have done with this car. They have a great bunch of people, both in Ford and Holden. They’ve managed to keep a line of cars going against the odds, and even improved them dramatically and added sporting models to the lineup as well. I have some major reservations about Ford moving their rear wheel drive development to Dearborn. Dearborn has shown they can do it with the DEW-98, but they haven’t shown that they can keep it moving forward - much less sustain what they had.
IMHO, what’s needed is a worldwide platform built to the same strategy as Nissan’s “FM”. World-class engineering, built to be used in different widths and lengths, able to accommodate the future engine lineup, and spreading costs of the expensive platform bits around several different product lines. The DEW was nearly that, most of the bits were right on, but they didn’t tackle the cost issue and carrying Jaguar was just one reason for the end of it.
So we all share the wishful thinking for Ford to get on with a new and world-class rear wheel drive platform, but what’s shown in the pictures is not it."
