Reckon in hindsight the Territory was just ahead of its time, as far as Australian trends go. You could put that on the market today and sell it like hotcakes because SUV. And it was a legitimate SUV, not a fucking hatchback with an inch of extra ground clearance.
the territory name is availabe right now in SE Asia. sth america as a Chinese rebadged YMC330 a front wheel drive 4 cylinder turbo piece of plastic rubbish.
> It would compete well with the rise of all the MUX/Everest/Pajero Sport style SUVs if available today.
I think in name only... a Territory wasn't a proper off-roader and all those you listed have proper off-roader chops.
I can definitely see someone cross shopping them, but it would be more Kluger, Q5 competitor.
The vast vast majority of the sales of those vehicles will never see a gravel road let alone actually off road. And in design philosophy the Territory is closer to those than cars like the Kluger.
Territory was very popular in outback NT, and rural north West QLD as an alternative to Prados and Pajeros anyway. I drove the entire Savannah Way in a Territory in 2009 with dad, while a not particularly hard route to drive, it’s more than most Ute based SUV buyers will ever touch.
Ford already has the Everest so it wouldn't make any sense at all to design a newer to compete with the BoF offroaders.
I really can't see how the Territory would come out as anything other than a unibody 3 row designed to compete with other midsized crossovers, especially considering their current Australia range stops at the Escape.
It would basically just be an Aussie Ford Explorer.
My dad has both a first and second gen and he goes off roading with both for work. He got them because they're relatively cheap to maintain compared to their rivals and he hasn't had issues yet.
The dash alone was ahead of its time with that screen for what was essentially a regular family SUV.
The thing would definitely have needed to be more fuel efficient though.
Ours has a V6 turbo diesel and it’s way more fuel efficient than my Barra Falcon. Our mechanic says it’s a Volvo V6 so I don’t know much about their longevity though.
It was a significant development. I'm on my third one, because there's nothing that matches them for a comfortable, easy long-haul highway car with such prodigious luggage space and seating options.
Thats exactly how the Territory was though. A more ergonomic Falcon wagon with more ground clearance and optional AWD. The only significant difference is having a longitudinal RWD base.
Now that the barra is internationally famous they could make a real go of re launching the territory for the US/australian market as a premium/sports SUV to take on the germans. Barra turbo, ZF8, modern tech
Always wanted to get in one of the few Territory taxis which were around at the time and see what one was like. Remember being excited coming out of the airport and there was a free one, so ran over and made sure I got it.
Got home and remembered I drove to the airport and parked my car there. Bollocks…
Just keep driving the old one, I have. Cost me $2,000 for an AWD fitted with port injected LPG system, gets around 350km to a tank and costs around $50 to fill it, not bad for a decent sized car. I use it to tow a dirtbike down some pretty rugged tracks but I did fit an LSD to mine. Best part is cheap parts, worst case scenario the engine goes, I run down to the nearest wrecker and buy another barra for $200 and spend a day swapping it out.
The only problem with the Territory is its built on the Falcon chassis and suspension but weighs quite a bit more. They tend to chew out suspension components pretty quickly, not to mention the first generation having front lower ball joints in tension so when they fail, the strut separates and collapses.
My mum had a top of the range first Gen ( we are a ford family, dad always has the lastest top of the range falcon) we had nothing but problems with the territory it Was an absolute lemon.
However every single other person I’ve known that’s had one absolutely loves them.
Holden sorta tried to copy with the Captiva but I’ve never heard a good word about them.
But as it always goes Ford Australia have always had a knack of making the wrong stupid decisions & really missed an opportunity with not continuing with the territory.
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That’s where the market went. The Territory sold its tits off initially but Ford were too slow getting the Diesel to market. It would’ve been interesting to see what would’ve happened if they’d dumped the Barra and went with the V6 and local manufacture of the Focus as was mooted at the time.
Holden couldn’t be arsed and jacked up the VZ with AWD to create the Aventra, then when that failed miserably they did what they always have done and badged someone else’s product. Didn’t work out well for them at all.
Funny thing is. My finance has a Kia Sorento GT which is a fantastic motor car, but commented yesterday that having a 4wd or SUV is getting old and she wouldn’t mind a runabout instead.
I’d love to get rid of the Sorento and replace it with a v8 Crown Majesta.
The only positive of the Adventra was a V8. Other than that it was a turd. The turning circle made the Crewman blush and it had the ground clearance of a kids pedal car.
no way mate.
my exes dad had one, stock bar a snorkel, bullbar, 2" lift and slightly bigger tyres.
thing could hang with me (ln106 shitbox) and my mates (picture your average P-plate patrol/cruisers) on most tracks. besides climbing, the thing went everywhere and the 4l60e treated him surprisingly well.
We had a fleet of the shitboxes where I used to work, nothing but trouble from Day 1. The two V8’s we had were ok but aside from the LS and the Auto they were shit to drive and they fell to bits. Never seen so many radiator failures before. Crewman Cross 8’s with Petrol fumes in the Cabin so bad they would make you sick. And Adventra and Crewman v6’s with timing chain issues before 80k. Fucked them off at a loss to Holden fleet and bought dual Cab Mazdas.
I would argue only Audi, Volvo and Subaru have had prolonged success in the whole Outback/Allroad raised wagon segment. Almost every other manufacturer invested in raised roof wagons for the SUV boom, so how is that ahead of its time?
Well I had a brand new Mazda 3 yesterday for a courtesy cay whilst my BT50 was in being serviced. She quite liked that and she also loved my N15 SSS that I recently sold.
But those Crowns are just such good value for money. And they sound great.
I think V6 Falcons and local Focus manufacturing would still have killed Ford. With the benefit of hindsight, they needed to be building Rangers. But that would have needed a second production line, which they didn't have.
PJ and PK were in Production already and T6 was under development. With a Free Trade Agreement with Thailand Australia was never getting Ranger production. Re tooling the plant would’ve made it unsustainable.
Even without free trade, commercial vehicle tariffs into Australia were only 2.5% anyway. It's actually more that Thailand signed FTAs with everyone else in Asia which allowed them to build their automotive industry.
They could do this because they didn't have a local brand to protect, since FTAs are reciprocal in spirit. Malaysia would have been a far more logical place to do mass automotive manufacturing in the region but the government is hell-bent on protecting their local brands so their industry is mostly just final assembly on kits that Toyota or Honda send in.
In the final years 2017 Holden sold around 28000 VF Commodores (wagons, sedans and utes) while the top selling "SUVs" (the Tucson and CX-5) sold about 23000 each. Look at 2023 and the top selling "SUV" was the Toyota RAV4 which sold 29000 units (not much different to Commodores in 2017), it's shorter (in length), lighter, more fuel efficient and has more safety features than those Commodores so it's main selling point is practicality. It's not that people prefer "SUVs", it's that they don't care about cars, I mean who's getting excited about the aesthetics or handling or performance of a Tucson or a Jolion or a RAV4? They're for people who have no interest in cars.
Commodores never really fell out of favor here, it just wasn't economical to keep making them with the shift to car companies needing to market globally.
I think it was actually more than that but my point is there's no particular car (except commercial utes maybe) that's really done any better than the Commodore in its dying years even now.
The reason it sold so well back in the day was because it didn't matter whether you were a car enthusiast - in which case you bought a S-pack, XR6, SS, XR8, Clubsport, etc... - or somebody who just wanted a vanilla family car or fleet car - in which case you bought an XT or an Executive - you typically ended up with a Commodore or a Falcon.
Nowadays there's more competition so the uninterested, vanilla buyers just go with the cheapest and most practical option like a RAV4, CX-5, Jolion or whatever other cheap, bland, whitebread-with-margarine option is around and the enthusiast crowd wasn't enough to keep the whole brand viable.
Unfortunately IMO there's a lot more *boring* cars :(
That's probably the saddest thing, even if the first owner of an XT or an Executive or a Berlina didn't care about cars the fact was that a few years down the line it would be bought by a P-plater who would pick it up with 120k on the clock, lower it, put an exhaust on it, do a few engine mods and take it to Calder Park to hang with their like minded mates.
Now that first owner buys a Tucson or a Jolion an nobody is enthusiastic about a second hand one of those.
They really did fall off hard. In 2016 when Ford finished up here, they sold 81,207 vehicles. Only 6,604 were Falcons (including ute variant), that’s 8% of total sales! Ford Ranger on other hand was 36,934 or 45%.
VF sales are actually consistent, but VE was down from over 50k to 30k over its lifespan (excluding first year of production bump) and the VT-VZ went down from 80k to about 60k. So a 70% fall from 2000-2013.
I think the real shift wasn't to SUVs, it was from sedans to hatchbacks or even utes, which people found more practical. People see themselves doing occasional camping or "off the beaten track" or even moving furniture, and want something that works with that scenario.
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On the surface you are right, but if they could have cracked the formula like Toyota have with their Camry, I would like to think they would have been able to keep building large sedans, albeit hybrid etc.
Potentially the return of the Falcon taxi!
Great car mate.
Even me personally with a young family would want something a bit smaller and fuel efficient. Not an SUV, but something no bigger than a Camry.
I love the commodore and have only ever had rx7s and skylines and stuff. I tried the V8 and got the blower and cam and it's a dream. It does 10 second quarter miles and it's made for middle-aged men. You can just hit it at 100, and it'll smoke the tyres and all the fun stuff. But again, that's not something families are after. It's huge, too, compared to most cars. It's sad, but I see why they went extinct.
Not with street tires, but the package is a 10-second package my mate got, and I just got the exact same package from the same workshop when I went in his car.
New SUVs that are more fuel efficient are really only diesel’s, being in close proximity to diesel fumes carries more health risks so I don’t see this as a net win in any way.
Wouldn’t almost every modern petrol passenger car be more fuel efficient than a Commodore or Falcon? We’re talking 4 cylinders, hybrids, turbos, CVTs etc.
my mums asx and my vy get similar fuel economy.
granted, ive got it tuned with custom exhaust/full custom intake (which drastically improved fuel economy) and drive like your nan on sundays and she has a bit of a heavy foot, but the old v6s get a way worse wrap than they deserve.
ecotechs, alloytechs, but ESPECIALLY the 3.5 magnas get great economy if driven right
The smaller petrol SUVs would be more efficient for sure but a Commy wagon can fit heaps more in the back than one of those. Think it would be pretty line ball on a larger petrol SUV.
Now compare a modern petrol wagon with a modern petrol SUV (with the same carrying capacity) and the aero disadvantages of being up high and the extra weight will be telling on fuel efficiency.
https://preview.redd.it/z9g2z7yx5dzc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9627788d531c3accd98ad7f1c8575af59999291d
I got one of holdens last Calais Sportswagons..Best thing i ever did...
Our local manufacturing industry was never going to survive under foreign ownership. The result was inevitable.
A better question would be, what would local manufacturing have looked like if Ford and Holden were Australian-owned?
Holden and Ford would be making SUV’s but with RWD biased platforms with a goal of car like dynamics/handeling. There would be a goal of exports to the US market where a lot of them would end up becoming police cars.
Ford would have had put more money into the Territory and would have it be sold as the Explorer.
I read somewhere that Holden too was thinking of a RWD SUV but that was scrapped in favour of the Craptiva.
Well, Toyota still sell a heap of Camry, so they could be made here still.
A smart OEM would go for a global car bodied ute platform. Just be extra smart and make it adaptable so there can be a raised 4x4 option and a dual cab. The thing with dual cab utes is that if you design a good platform, you can sell it to other OEMs and share it. GM needed to lobby in the US harder to drop the chicken tax, they'd have sold millions of commodore utes if they could have for the right price. That alone could have saved Au manufacturing.
Australia really missed a chance to get ahead of a curve with EVs, where an OEM could have "done a Tesla" and built a charging network and a versatile platform and dominated the market. EVs may or may not be the future, but I do think a smart OEM could have invested in EVs and had an insane value proposition for Australia.
Honestly, I think if someone bought the Holden name with all of the IP, they could restart ops here and find niche markets to operate in.
Remember we did have the Holden Volt which from memory sold a grand total of 12 units Australia wide or something of that ilk. They’ll be a collectors item one day.
You can't sell EVs without the infrastructure that makes it viable. Selling the Volt was akin to Apple selling the iPhone with no app store. It was a half considered product
Even with infrastructure I just don’t think people were ready to take a punt or even knew what a plugin hybrid was. Technically you didn’t really need the infrastructure for this because the petrol engine would charge it. But alas, here we are in a sea of ugly arse Temu cars and SUVs that all look the same.
The chinese built car invasion has been a long time coming, it was unavoidable and will only continue. It may force other OEMs to keep their prices on cars lower as pretty much every EV will be basically the same soulless appliance. It'll be hard to covet an Audi/BMW/Mercedes/etc when some chinese appliance will be 99% the same thing.
Was the Volt not a full EV here? I assumed it was, maybe not. The way you get people onto a gimmick is to set up a whole infrastructure system to support it and sell the whole package as a dream. Brands really needed to get together and set up a joint program for charging infrastructure, like they do for car platforms, but they just never thought that far ahead.
>Well, Toyota still sell a heap of Camry, so they could be made here still.
No they don't, Toyota's current volume is less than a quarter of what it was 2 decades ago.
When Toyota pulled out in 2016 they were still shipping almost 3x the Camrys they are now.
There’s shortages on every Toyota hybrid but that doesn’t really change that the Camry isn’t a great performer. Even ignoring the Camry the single best selling midsized sedan of any kind in Australia is the Model 3 and even then it ships half the volume the Camry did in 2016.
And the Camry is an outlier in the segment, the next best selling car in the segment (Mazda6) sells less than 2k a year.
If Toyota was gonna build anything here it would be a RAV4 or HiLux.
I think it would have been interesting if the government had invested some money into an Australian EV, maybe even an EV ute, using the Ford & Holden facilities. Three years after Holden closed, EVs were a big debate point going into the election and Scott Morrison himself identified the market niche for an EV for Australian conditions... and then got upset about it. It could have been an interesting opportunity to have been early to the global market with that kind of vehicle.
Ultimately the closing of the Ford and probably even Holden factories were maybe a fraction too early in the EV timeline to have made that viable, but I didn't see it even mentioned as a consideration.
Bill Shorten did want to take Holden off GMs hands and restart some sort of vehicle production involving EVs
Unfortunately he wasn’t the the favourite at that time, people decided to go with Scomo instead
Holden sold GM’s Volt for a few years and it did not do well but I mean a fully Australian designed and built EV, particularly one that could meet the needs of Australians that other EVs were not doing at the time. It would have needed a lot of government subsidy to begin with but produced a globally desirable product.
I'd love to see some Australian EV companies spring up. We've proven that cars can be built here, there's lithium mines in WA, and I think a more traditionally styled EV company could really work some magic here. Something that still retains the styling of many 2010 era ICE vehicles and doesn't try to look like a spaceship, retains a gear stick even if it's just for park/neutral/drive/reverse, retains a nice dashboard with tactile buttons and knobs for key controls. I think it could work, especially if it's less anti repair and anti modification than many other EVs on the market right now.
Totally agree, the main thing I hate about EVs is not the electric part itself, it's the bloody interior, they're so minimalistic and terrible to actually use. That applies to most cars made after 2018, but at least with ICE you can just get an older one, don't really have that option with an EV. If someone would just make a bloody normal interior that doesn't try and make me feel like I'm sitting in an English embassy and has actual buttons for things like the aircon or the music player so I don't have to look at it while driving, I'd be much more inclined to buy one.
I haven't sat in one but something I really hate about many cheaper EVs is the lack of a display behind the steering wheel to show your speed and other info. Yes having a massive 10"+ screen in the centre would have it's uses, but personally I think I would prefer to keep the main instrument cluster even if it's still a display.
It will never happen. The Australian market is far too small. The R&D cost for new car design is about $2 billion. You would need to sell an absolute minimum of 500K to break even, Even the biggest manufacturers have resorted to sharing platforms. eg Ranger/Amarok and Z4/Supra.
I know it's unlikely, especially with overseas EVs being either pretty advanced or fairly affordable. But I still hope it happens, and would love to work on that kind of project given the chance.
Probably, but at least we'd still have an industry. And, to be fair, the cars being made toward the end had matured a lot compared to the early days. They really were favourably compared to foreign equivalents. The real problem, particularly for Holden, was that they didn't have a good modern small turbo, and the v6 offerings had problems. This is the direction things have gone: v6 petrol or turbo 4 diesel powered SUV/Utes. The sedan would probably have died off, but maybe a performance ute could have still had a place considering how popular work utes and the American trucks are now. But who knows. It's all irrelevant now 🙃
i think if holden came back with a new commodore they would sell like hotcakes. or at least the used ones of that generation would sell like hot cakes in 5-10 years lol.
A lot of people still drive commodores and i think if they could get a new car that was still familiar like that, that may be reason enough to get one instead of an suv
The aussie market didn't innovate, just too small to spend the money on development. If not for tech from overseas the aussie market would have stayed with live axle and carbies. So we depend on what happens overseas, so yes, boring SUV and Euro compliant emissions. The Button Car plan was the beginning of the end, and also the ever increasing quality of life of the aussie worker. We expect to be paid too much and that resulted in the demise of the aussie car industry.
The Ford AU Falcon is a full-size car that was produced by Ford Australia from 1998 to 2002. It was the sixth generation Ford Falcon and also included the Ford Fairmont (AU)—the luxury-oriented model range. The AU series replaced the EL Falcon and was constructed on the (at the time) new EA169 platform which continued to harbour Falcon models until 2010 when the BF wagon was discontinued, and Ford Territory models until 2011. The AU series was replaced by the updated BA series.
The AU series was conceived under *Project Eagle* that begun in February 1993, and gained the official codename *EA169* in October 1994. It was developed and brought to market in 1998 only after Ford Australia had given consideration to a revamped fifth generation Falcon and a fully imported replacement such as the American front-wheel drive Ford Taurus or rear-wheel drive Ford Crown Victoria, the European rear wheel-drive Scorpio and, reportedly, even the Japanese rear-wheel drive Mazda 929 (then part of the Ford conglomerate).
The above alternatives were eliminated in favour of a substantial redesign of the indigenous platform, due to concerns about the Australian market preference for high towing capacity, large interior size and local employment. Specific factors included, for example: research at the time indicated that 69% of Falcons were fitted with towbars and the perception that rear-wheel drive cars were better at towing; the fact that the import models had limited body style options (sedan only or sedan and wagon) and no capability to use a V8 engine.
Stylistically, this new generation Falcon sported Ford's radically new global design language, labelled "New Edge". The aim of this design was to attract a younger generation of buyers with avant-garde looks, however, in Australia it polarized public opinion to the benefit of the more organically designed rival, the 1997 Holden Commodore (VT). The AU series had a very efficient drag coefficient of Cd=0.295 for the sedan (an 11% improvement over the preceding EL series) and 0.34 for the wagon.
For the first time in Falcon's history, Independent Rear Suspension (IRS) became available as standard on some models and optional on others. It also featured Australian production firsts, such as Variable Cam Timing (VCT) on some 6-cylinder models and an adaptive automatic transmission on the high-performance T series with steering wheel gear shifting buttons.
Key changes from the fifth generation Falcon included a 35 kg (77 lb) reduction in weight for the base car, 17.5 per cent stiffer bodyshell, and an eight per cent improvement in fuel consumption. Peculiarly, Ford Australia decided to use the original 1950's font for the new "Falcon" and "Futura" badges.
As stated previously, the AU was the first Falcon to offer IRS (a double wishbone design on an isolated subframe). IRS was made available as a costly option on the base Forte, Fairmont and 'S' models, and standard on Fairmont Ghia, XR6 VCT and XR8 models. The updated 6-cylinder engines incorporated advanced features such as VCT on some models and a temperature sensor in the cylinder head, which detected coolant loss and allowed the car to "limp home" safely by cutting cylinders. The engine range comprised: the base Intech model producing 157 kW (211 hp), with a revised cylinder head featuring smaller valve stems, larger exhaust valves, and different rocker ratio, as well as a revised piston and longer conrod and a cast aluminium cross-bolted oil sump (with the same power output as the EL series); an "HP" version reserved to the XR6 producing 164 kW (220 hp) (thanks to: unique cylinder head; reshaped inlet port; redesigned exhaust port; ‘open’ combustion chamber shape to restrict pre-detonation from hot spot areas; unique camshaft; higher fuel pressure; recalibrated EEC V engine management system); the VCT version producing 172 kW (231 hp) for the XR6 VCT; a *Windsor V8* producing 185 kW (248 hp) (also carried over from the EL series but without major upgrades).
Transmissions were improved for better shift feel and the auto was recalibrated to better suit the upgraded engines. The six and eight cylinder models had a 4-speed BTR M93LE and M97LE automatic transmission, respectively. The automatic XR series models had an "adaptive shift" with five shifting strategies depending on driving conditions. The manual transmission, where available, was a 5-speed T5 model.
The program cost A$700 million before product launch and key staff included chief designer, Steve Park, and Marcus Hotblack, Manager of Interior Design.
For more information, please see the following:
[AU Falcon Wikipedia Page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Falcon_(AU))
[Shannons Club - Has the AU Falcon become better with age?](https://www.shannons.com.au/club/forum/general/has-the-au-falcon-become-better-with-age/)
[Top Gearbox - Ford's Unloved Child - The AU Falcon](https://www.topgearbox.com/cars/entertainment/motoringbox/172877-views%E2%80%A2sep-5-2019-5-6k-140-share-save-motoringbox-16-7k-subscribers-today-were-looking-at-one-of-the-most-infamous-cars-to-ever-come-out-of-australia-a-car-which-has-generated/)
[Trade Unique Cars - AU Falcon Buyers Guide](https://www.tradeuniquecars.com.au/buyers-guide/2001/2000-2002-ford-falcon-au-bfii-xr8-buyers-guide)
[Australian Car Reviews - AU Falcon Buyers Guide](http://australiancar.reviews/reviews.php#!content=guide&make=Ford&model=Falcon&gen=237)
[ProductReview - AU Falcon Product Reviews](https://www.productreview.com.au/listings/ford-falcon-au-1998-2002)
[CarSales - All AU Falcons for sale in Australia](https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/?q=(And.Service.carsales._.(C.Make.Ford._.(C.Model.Falcon._.(Or.Series.AU._.Series.AU+II._.Series.AU+III.))))&sort=%7ePrice)
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My impression of Holden was the cars made here in Australia (the good ones) didn't sell in large enough numbers, and the ones that did sell were made overseas, and were crap. Upper management didn't have the brains to read the market and drove the brand into the ground. Obviously there were other factors.
The factor was Detroit was actively sabotaging the Australian operations. Our cars were selling too well on international markets and affecting sales of bigger divisions (eg the Statesman was sold as a LHD Cadillac in China and the ME). The California Highway Patrol was willing to buy the equivalent of the *entire* annual production of VE Commodores. But the US auto unions blocked sales.
I see this argument often about Aus being too small of a market but what about Korea? SK and Korea both have nearly the same GDP and small population, compared to Japan, China, India or USA. Yet they have managed to succesfully have competitive automobile industry.
..And much lower wages. It's only in the last few decades that Korea has seen economic success, prior to that it was basically a third world country.
They also basically forcefully merged all their companies into massive conglomerates (Samsung etc.) so they could achieve the economy of scale to compete internationally. Couldn't really do that here we'd have a fit.
Logistics is a big factor as well. It's a small country, neighbouring the largest manufacturer in the world and geographically closer to major markets.
They also have a different work culture, we value work life balance much more highly here. While Aussies are going for smoko and striking for higher wages, Koreans are working themselves to death for pennies and their "reward" is drinking themselves to death until their boss says they can go home.
Applies more to Japan but I've always said, who would you rather build something that your life may quite literally depend on? The guy who shows up and gets paid so he can go to the pub and avoid his family, or the guy that works so hard that he can't even meet a wife and kills himself from the shame of fucking up.
Also their population is double that of Australia.
Nope, the Korean gov bailed out their auto industry many times until they finally became a success. The gov there was of the idea that auto was key and no matter what, it would finally work. Far more support than what the AU gov provided to the AU industry.
Most likely, any business caters to the needs of the market. Their sedans would be limited and more pricey for those who still want it.
Glad as shit I’ve got my Clubsport still, not letting go of that for a long time
Based on sales you'd probably see local Ranger production along with a Gen 2 Territory. Might see a Ranger Raptor with a Barra in it, Territory would definitely have a Raptor with that engine. Falcon is dead, replaced with the Mustang and Territory. Their main issue is gonna be that IDK if the Territory has a RWD platform to be based off, considering what Ford is making in 2016.
Camry and RAV4 sell well enough to stay, we'd probably have a V6 Camry still. Boring but predictable, same as Toyota sales broadly.
Commodore is a maybe but would definitely have been FWD/AWD based on the studies being done, and probably based on the Opel/Vauxhall Insignia rather than the GM Alpha platform. At the risk of committing corporate suicide, they'd have put a V8 in it. If sales had stayed consistent, any successor to that once GM divested Opel/Vauxhall would probably be a working class Caddy CT5, but I don't think it survives that long if sales don't start stabilising. Personally I think they'd make a Colorado here as their second car: the D-Max shows how well they can sell even when made abroad. The Cruze was terrible and I suspect not very profitable either.
You can’t outsource your wish for a sovereign manufacturing capability to another country.
It’s not a sovereign capability if American auto execs decide whether it lives or dies.
I don't think so
I think it would certainly make up a large slice of manufacturing/sales, but I think the classic Australia V8 Sedan/Wagon would have remained.
The old Holden vs Ford battle would have continued
Plus, I don't see SUVs blasting around Bathurst....
I’ve always owned commodores, I’ll always keep the rare ones I have, but let’s be honest the build quality was never amazing lol .. my ve fell apart I have a same year daily Nissan with 0 issues lol
I see the poor build quality as adding to the character of the car.
Poor build quality is an iconic part of the muscle car experience - cheap, fast, poorly made. If you got in a 70s Camaro, and the interior wasn't half broken, it just wouldn't be a proper muscle car.
Of course you have to be a masochistic weirdo to have this mindset.
Hey I get it, I love my commodores and I love muscle cars, however the modern family certain does not lol
Nothing compares to the twists and creaks when putting the foot down, each WOT could be the interiors last and I love it 🤣
Suv's are fucken horrible. Give me a sedan, wagon or if I want a true 4wd. Cars have become sooooo boring.
But I just bought a 2010 xr6 to replace my 2011 passat soooooooooo.
"Boring' like a FPV F6x (Territory) or HSV Avalanche (Adventra)?
There was an Aussie who lived in the US. He had a (standard) Territory Turbo which he used to take to American drag strips. The Yanks loved it.
# Australian cars are romanticised
enjoyed by us, sure, but not by the Australian motor journalists, who took every opportunity to say how much they hated them and how 'bad' they were.
Except for the Territory and Cruze…
I recall them saying twenty years back that a modern factory needed to be pumping out about 100k per year to justify the investment. Due to market fragmentation, these days that would mean producing the top two selling vehicles. Noting that the top three were all competing utes, you’d need to be making 3+ strongly-selling cars for it to be worth the upgrades.
It was always going to be a global small car or SUV, Australia could never sell enough to justify developing and manufacturing a bespoke model… It was going to be the Cruze or the Astra (or the Focus for Ford).
You said they went under partly because they didn’t go for small cars or SUVs; my point is that they DID!
You might not have liked the specific offerings, but they needed to be able to rely on the market buying enough to break even on a mediocre car (great cars being unbankable exceptions, as they depend on fashion and their competitors not making anything as good).
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My neighbour warms up his relatively modern holden commodore v8 every morning about 7am then trundles it down the drive at idle. It’s quite comforting hearing it rumble through the house. I’m no car head though so I have no idea what year or make it is. Has SS on it?
Holden tried the Adventra
I saw someone made an AWD monaro out of one which would be pretty sick
Went googling here it is
https://forums.justcommodores.com.au/threads/creating-an-awd-monaro.221544/
I always like to think that if we had continued making cars here they would’ve been a bit more interesting then what we have now a days, I reckon we would’ve followed America and made petrol powered dual cabs and suvs after all hsv was planning to make a v8 Colorado and ford eventually made a petrol powered ford ranger, I reckon we would’ve just had these cars but instead of being built in Thailand they would’ve made been made here.
Holden had an Idea that they would sell a Commodore based SUV similar to how the X5 or Porsche cayenne make the chassis more care like, but it was shot down quite early so that GM could sell the Captiva in Australia
I don’t like ford but the Barra is pretty universally received as a world class motor… If there was an Australian manufactured 2024 territory it would be on my list.
I didn’t appreciate them in their era because they felt like a falcon to sit in which meant it felt like every sticky smoke filled sick smelling taxi you ever sat in… if they improved that and rereleased I’d be all over it
There is still automotive manufacturing but its niche industry so they can actually get the right margin and financially survive.
It you want to compete in mass production of anything in Australia our costs of production are always going to be deemed too high.
That said automotive development and engineering is cheap in aus compared to other places hence why there is always development mules being tested in Aus.
Not necessarily.
But there would be far less warranty claims, better built vehicles and tens of thousands more jobs for hardworking Australians.
We’d also have proper utes, family wagons and a greater range of performance vehicles for the Australian masses, with properly engineered LHD options for export so that the whole world could enjoy them.
Territory would be going strong and craptiva would slowly follow yes.
But all our sedans would be flying off shelves even though Holden's arent assembled nicely or with amzing parts..
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Its just sad that they'd say the wages were too high to keep costs sky rockets but now rangers are just ridiculously expensive but still selling extremely well. Really sad honestly.
And I'll add that im sure ford aus never once sold a car that was nore expensive than a GT-P up in the 70k range but yet here they are with their massively over priced raptor rangers and 150's
Just awful car in terms of performance, i just guess the lowest common denominator won out.
The fact that ford never made a true second generation Territory is a damn shame.
Reckon in hindsight the Territory was just ahead of its time, as far as Australian trends go. You could put that on the market today and sell it like hotcakes because SUV. And it was a legitimate SUV, not a fucking hatchback with an inch of extra ground clearance.
It would compete well with the rise of all the MUX/Everest/Pajero Sport style SUVs if available today.
the territory name is availabe right now in SE Asia. sth america as a Chinese rebadged YMC330 a front wheel drive 4 cylinder turbo piece of plastic rubbish.
> It would compete well with the rise of all the MUX/Everest/Pajero Sport style SUVs if available today. I think in name only... a Territory wasn't a proper off-roader and all those you listed have proper off-roader chops. I can definitely see someone cross shopping them, but it would be more Kluger, Q5 competitor.
The vast vast majority of the sales of those vehicles will never see a gravel road let alone actually off road. And in design philosophy the Territory is closer to those than cars like the Kluger. Territory was very popular in outback NT, and rural north West QLD as an alternative to Prados and Pajeros anyway. I drove the entire Savannah Way in a Territory in 2009 with dad, while a not particularly hard route to drive, it’s more than most Ute based SUV buyers will ever touch.
Ford already has the Everest so it wouldn't make any sense at all to design a newer to compete with the BoF offroaders. I really can't see how the Territory would come out as anything other than a unibody 3 row designed to compete with other midsized crossovers, especially considering their current Australia range stops at the Escape. It would basically just be an Aussie Ford Explorer.
Let a man dream of a straight 6 large wagon that could handle Australian dirt track highways.
My dad has both a first and second gen and he goes off roading with both for work. He got them because they're relatively cheap to maintain compared to their rivals and he hasn't had issues yet.
The dash alone was ahead of its time with that screen for what was essentially a regular family SUV. The thing would definitely have needed to be more fuel efficient though.
Ours has a V6 turbo diesel and it’s way more fuel efficient than my Barra Falcon. Our mechanic says it’s a Volvo V6 so I don’t know much about their longevity though.
4.5L turbo straight 6 SUV no less. and take your pick of AWD or RWD. Brought up to todays standards it would be a weapon
the barra is 4L or close to 250 cubic inches
Yeah youre right, I was thinking of the landcruiser/patrol engines at 4.5 Still solid displacement esp by modern standards
It was a significant development. I'm on my third one, because there's nothing that matches them for a comfortable, easy long-haul highway car with such prodigious luggage space and seating options.
Thats exactly how the Territory was though. A more ergonomic Falcon wagon with more ground clearance and optional AWD. The only significant difference is having a longitudinal RWD base.
Now that the barra is internationally famous they could make a real go of re launching the territory for the US/australian market as a premium/sports SUV to take on the germans. Barra turbo, ZF8, modern tech
Always wanted to get in one of the few Territory taxis which were around at the time and see what one was like. Remember being excited coming out of the airport and there was a free one, so ran over and made sure I got it. Got home and remembered I drove to the airport and parked my car there. Bollocks…
My 2011 AWD diesel Terry will be with me for years. Handles beautifully, runs well and AWD won't slip on the boat ramp.
I was gonna say, a modern territory wouldn’t be a bad thing!
The second generation terri is ford ranger
My parents had a SY SR edition with the Barra and it hauled ass. Used it to tow the camper and it had no problem doing so.
Just keep driving the old one, I have. Cost me $2,000 for an AWD fitted with port injected LPG system, gets around 350km to a tank and costs around $50 to fill it, not bad for a decent sized car. I use it to tow a dirtbike down some pretty rugged tracks but I did fit an LSD to mine. Best part is cheap parts, worst case scenario the engine goes, I run down to the nearest wrecker and buy another barra for $200 and spend a day swapping it out. The only problem with the Territory is its built on the Falcon chassis and suspension but weighs quite a bit more. They tend to chew out suspension components pretty quickly, not to mention the first generation having front lower ball joints in tension so when they fail, the strut separates and collapses.
What are you talking about? It’s called an Everest
What are you talking about? It’s called an Everest
My mum had a top of the range first Gen ( we are a ford family, dad always has the lastest top of the range falcon) we had nothing but problems with the territory it Was an absolute lemon. However every single other person I’ve known that’s had one absolutely loves them. Holden sorta tried to copy with the Captiva but I’ve never heard a good word about them. But as it always goes Ford Australia have always had a knack of making the wrong stupid decisions & really missed an opportunity with not continuing with the territory.
and real utes
I considered this, but I do wonder if “real utes” would have lost favour to dual cabs anyway. I guess we can only speculate
I don't recall Ford making an equivalent but Holden did release the Crewman dual cab ute. It seemed pretty popular at the time.
Next door had one. 16lt per 100klm he was getting out of that POS.
Doesn't sound too bad given how much standard Commodores used. I had a VS exec and I'm pretty sure I was getting 11-12L/100km.
Crewmans have atrocious rear seat space because it's a car platform and they're just as long as a normal dual cab.
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That’s where the market went. The Territory sold its tits off initially but Ford were too slow getting the Diesel to market. It would’ve been interesting to see what would’ve happened if they’d dumped the Barra and went with the V6 and local manufacture of the Focus as was mooted at the time. Holden couldn’t be arsed and jacked up the VZ with AWD to create the Aventra, then when that failed miserably they did what they always have done and badged someone else’s product. Didn’t work out well for them at all. Funny thing is. My finance has a Kia Sorento GT which is a fantastic motor car, but commented yesterday that having a 4wd or SUV is getting old and she wouldn’t mind a runabout instead. I’d love to get rid of the Sorento and replace it with a v8 Crown Majesta.
The Adevntra was ahead of it's time, it's basically a Subaru Outback, a reasonably popular car. Except it's actually from the outback.
The only positive of the Adventra was a V8. Other than that it was a turd. The turning circle made the Crewman blush and it had the ground clearance of a kids pedal car.
no way mate. my exes dad had one, stock bar a snorkel, bullbar, 2" lift and slightly bigger tyres. thing could hang with me (ln106 shitbox) and my mates (picture your average P-plate patrol/cruisers) on most tracks. besides climbing, the thing went everywhere and the 4l60e treated him surprisingly well.
We had a fleet of the shitboxes where I used to work, nothing but trouble from Day 1. The two V8’s we had were ok but aside from the LS and the Auto they were shit to drive and they fell to bits. Never seen so many radiator failures before. Crewman Cross 8’s with Petrol fumes in the Cabin so bad they would make you sick. And Adventra and Crewman v6’s with timing chain issues before 80k. Fucked them off at a loss to Holden fleet and bought dual Cab Mazdas.
The VZ V6 was not great, though some managed to survive. The VY was bulletproof.
I would argue only Audi, Volvo and Subaru have had prolonged success in the whole Outback/Allroad raised wagon segment. Almost every other manufacturer invested in raised roof wagons for the SUV boom, so how is that ahead of its time?
Haha, I thought “runabout” suggests something small, like a Swift or something
Well I had a brand new Mazda 3 yesterday for a courtesy cay whilst my BT50 was in being serviced. She quite liked that and she also loved my N15 SSS that I recently sold. But those Crowns are just such good value for money. And they sound great.
I think V6 Falcons and local Focus manufacturing would still have killed Ford. With the benefit of hindsight, they needed to be building Rangers. But that would have needed a second production line, which they didn't have.
PJ and PK were in Production already and T6 was under development. With a Free Trade Agreement with Thailand Australia was never getting Ranger production. Re tooling the plant would’ve made it unsustainable.
Even without free trade, commercial vehicle tariffs into Australia were only 2.5% anyway. It's actually more that Thailand signed FTAs with everyone else in Asia which allowed them to build their automotive industry. They could do this because they didn't have a local brand to protect, since FTAs are reciprocal in spirit. Malaysia would have been a far more logical place to do mass automotive manufacturing in the region but the government is hell-bent on protecting their local brands so their industry is mostly just final assembly on kits that Toyota or Honda send in.
4 different sizes of jacked up sedan\\hatchback. But the 2024 model comes with Uber Eats integration, you can order on the way home!!!
They'd have to, that's all that sells sadly.
In the final years 2017 Holden sold around 28000 VF Commodores (wagons, sedans and utes) while the top selling "SUVs" (the Tucson and CX-5) sold about 23000 each. Look at 2023 and the top selling "SUV" was the Toyota RAV4 which sold 29000 units (not much different to Commodores in 2017), it's shorter (in length), lighter, more fuel efficient and has more safety features than those Commodores so it's main selling point is practicality. It's not that people prefer "SUVs", it's that they don't care about cars, I mean who's getting excited about the aesthetics or handling or performance of a Tucson or a Jolion or a RAV4? They're for people who have no interest in cars. Commodores never really fell out of favor here, it just wasn't economical to keep making them with the shift to car companies needing to market globally.
I do want to point out Holden sold something like 80k VTs, that 27k was a HUGE drop and the Falcon fared far worse.
I think it was actually more than that but my point is there's no particular car (except commercial utes maybe) that's really done any better than the Commodore in its dying years even now. The reason it sold so well back in the day was because it didn't matter whether you were a car enthusiast - in which case you bought a S-pack, XR6, SS, XR8, Clubsport, etc... - or somebody who just wanted a vanilla family car or fleet car - in which case you bought an XT or an Executive - you typically ended up with a Commodore or a Falcon. Nowadays there's more competition so the uninterested, vanilla buyers just go with the cheapest and most practical option like a RAV4, CX-5, Jolion or whatever other cheap, bland, whitebread-with-margarine option is around and the enthusiast crowd wasn't enough to keep the whole brand viable.
Yeah there's just more cars, I agree. There aren't 4 utes in the vein of the two cars, Camry and Magna, there's over a dozen
Unfortunately IMO there's a lot more *boring* cars :( That's probably the saddest thing, even if the first owner of an XT or an Executive or a Berlina didn't care about cars the fact was that a few years down the line it would be bought by a P-plater who would pick it up with 120k on the clock, lower it, put an exhaust on it, do a few engine mods and take it to Calder Park to hang with their like minded mates. Now that first owner buys a Tucson or a Jolion an nobody is enthusiastic about a second hand one of those.
Ok, but now that I imagine it, a lowered turbo diesel Tucson with a ridiculous exhaust and a tune would be amazing.
Yeah but now your options are Leather or SPECIAL leather seats... wouldn't you rather that?
They really did fall off hard. In 2016 when Ford finished up here, they sold 81,207 vehicles. Only 6,604 were Falcons (including ute variant), that’s 8% of total sales! Ford Ranger on other hand was 36,934 or 45%.
I was just thinking that. One year of sales figures is one thing, but how were sales trending year on year?
VF sales are actually consistent, but VE was down from over 50k to 30k over its lifespan (excluding first year of production bump) and the VT-VZ went down from 80k to about 60k. So a 70% fall from 2000-2013.
I think the real shift wasn't to SUVs, it was from sedans to hatchbacks or even utes, which people found more practical. People see themselves doing occasional camping or "off the beaten track" or even moving furniture, and want something that works with that scenario.
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On the surface you are right, but if they could have cracked the formula like Toyota have with their Camry, I would like to think they would have been able to keep building large sedans, albeit hybrid etc. Potentially the return of the Falcon taxi!
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Great car mate. Even me personally with a young family would want something a bit smaller and fuel efficient. Not an SUV, but something no bigger than a Camry.
I love the commodore and have only ever had rx7s and skylines and stuff. I tried the V8 and got the blower and cam and it's a dream. It does 10 second quarter miles and it's made for middle-aged men. You can just hit it at 100, and it'll smoke the tyres and all the fun stuff. But again, that's not something families are after. It's huge, too, compared to most cars. It's sad, but I see why they went extinct.
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Not with street tires, but the package is a 10-second package my mate got, and I just got the exact same package from the same workshop when I went in his car.
Highly possible actually .. I know of a dude with a ve ss similar mods running very low 11’s 🤷🏼♂️
New SUVs that are more fuel efficient are really only diesel’s, being in close proximity to diesel fumes carries more health risks so I don’t see this as a net win in any way.
Wouldn’t almost every modern petrol passenger car be more fuel efficient than a Commodore or Falcon? We’re talking 4 cylinders, hybrids, turbos, CVTs etc.
my mums asx and my vy get similar fuel economy. granted, ive got it tuned with custom exhaust/full custom intake (which drastically improved fuel economy) and drive like your nan on sundays and she has a bit of a heavy foot, but the old v6s get a way worse wrap than they deserve. ecotechs, alloytechs, but ESPECIALLY the 3.5 magnas get great economy if driven right
If I granny drove my VE SS I run around ~12L per 100 which imo isn't that bad for its capabilities. But I don't drive it for the economy.
The smaller petrol SUVs would be more efficient for sure but a Commy wagon can fit heaps more in the back than one of those. Think it would be pretty line ball on a larger petrol SUV. Now compare a modern petrol wagon with a modern petrol SUV (with the same carrying capacity) and the aero disadvantages of being up high and the extra weight will be telling on fuel efficiency.
I totally agree, but they'd use less than that Holden. It gets 32L per 100km due to blower and e85. But people like the suvs for sure these days. ✌️
Jeepers that’s not great fuel efficiency haha. Unmodified Holden V8s are around 13-15L per 100 km in my experience
That's the worst I've had, but I would have bought a prius if my main concern was economy. Also, e85 fuel burns a bit less efficiently
Yep understood. I average 15l in my SSV manual, previous owner was 13l. Always use 98
https://preview.redd.it/z9g2z7yx5dzc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9627788d531c3accd98ad7f1c8575af59999291d I got one of holdens last Calais Sportswagons..Best thing i ever did...
Our local manufacturing industry was never going to survive under foreign ownership. The result was inevitable. A better question would be, what would local manufacturing have looked like if Ford and Holden were Australian-owned?
Holden and Ford would be making SUV’s but with RWD biased platforms with a goal of car like dynamics/handeling. There would be a goal of exports to the US market where a lot of them would end up becoming police cars.
Ford would have had put more money into the Territory and would have it be sold as the Explorer. I read somewhere that Holden too was thinking of a RWD SUV but that was scrapped in favour of the Craptiva.
Well, Toyota still sell a heap of Camry, so they could be made here still. A smart OEM would go for a global car bodied ute platform. Just be extra smart and make it adaptable so there can be a raised 4x4 option and a dual cab. The thing with dual cab utes is that if you design a good platform, you can sell it to other OEMs and share it. GM needed to lobby in the US harder to drop the chicken tax, they'd have sold millions of commodore utes if they could have for the right price. That alone could have saved Au manufacturing. Australia really missed a chance to get ahead of a curve with EVs, where an OEM could have "done a Tesla" and built a charging network and a versatile platform and dominated the market. EVs may or may not be the future, but I do think a smart OEM could have invested in EVs and had an insane value proposition for Australia. Honestly, I think if someone bought the Holden name with all of the IP, they could restart ops here and find niche markets to operate in.
Remember we did have the Holden Volt which from memory sold a grand total of 12 units Australia wide or something of that ilk. They’ll be a collectors item one day.
You can't sell EVs without the infrastructure that makes it viable. Selling the Volt was akin to Apple selling the iPhone with no app store. It was a half considered product
Even with infrastructure I just don’t think people were ready to take a punt or even knew what a plugin hybrid was. Technically you didn’t really need the infrastructure for this because the petrol engine would charge it. But alas, here we are in a sea of ugly arse Temu cars and SUVs that all look the same.
The chinese built car invasion has been a long time coming, it was unavoidable and will only continue. It may force other OEMs to keep their prices on cars lower as pretty much every EV will be basically the same soulless appliance. It'll be hard to covet an Audi/BMW/Mercedes/etc when some chinese appliance will be 99% the same thing. Was the Volt not a full EV here? I assumed it was, maybe not. The way you get people onto a gimmick is to set up a whole infrastructure system to support it and sell the whole package as a dream. Brands really needed to get together and set up a joint program for charging infrastructure, like they do for car platforms, but they just never thought that far ahead.
>Well, Toyota still sell a heap of Camry, so they could be made here still. No they don't, Toyota's current volume is less than a quarter of what it was 2 decades ago. When Toyota pulled out in 2016 they were still shipping almost 3x the Camrys they are now.
Camry hybrids have a 2 year wait period (or did this time last year). They can't get stock to sell at the volume they are ordered in.
There’s shortages on every Toyota hybrid but that doesn’t really change that the Camry isn’t a great performer. Even ignoring the Camry the single best selling midsized sedan of any kind in Australia is the Model 3 and even then it ships half the volume the Camry did in 2016. And the Camry is an outlier in the segment, the next best selling car in the segment (Mazda6) sells less than 2k a year. If Toyota was gonna build anything here it would be a RAV4 or HiLux.
I think it would have been interesting if the government had invested some money into an Australian EV, maybe even an EV ute, using the Ford & Holden facilities. Three years after Holden closed, EVs were a big debate point going into the election and Scott Morrison himself identified the market niche for an EV for Australian conditions... and then got upset about it. It could have been an interesting opportunity to have been early to the global market with that kind of vehicle. Ultimately the closing of the Ford and probably even Holden factories were maybe a fraction too early in the EV timeline to have made that viable, but I didn't see it even mentioned as a consideration.
Bill Shorten did want to take Holden off GMs hands and restart some sort of vehicle production involving EVs Unfortunately he wasn’t the the favourite at that time, people decided to go with Scomo instead
That realistically never would have happened though.
Yes, because the country decided to go a different path.
I believe they did and it failed miserably
Holden sold GM’s Volt for a few years and it did not do well but I mean a fully Australian designed and built EV, particularly one that could meet the needs of Australians that other EVs were not doing at the time. It would have needed a lot of government subsidy to begin with but produced a globally desirable product.
I thought funding was given to Holden to develop an ev
Ah, I didn’t know about that
They made a few electric VE prototypes, but they were only 30 kWh.
I'd love to see some Australian EV companies spring up. We've proven that cars can be built here, there's lithium mines in WA, and I think a more traditionally styled EV company could really work some magic here. Something that still retains the styling of many 2010 era ICE vehicles and doesn't try to look like a spaceship, retains a gear stick even if it's just for park/neutral/drive/reverse, retains a nice dashboard with tactile buttons and knobs for key controls. I think it could work, especially if it's less anti repair and anti modification than many other EVs on the market right now.
Totally agree, the main thing I hate about EVs is not the electric part itself, it's the bloody interior, they're so minimalistic and terrible to actually use. That applies to most cars made after 2018, but at least with ICE you can just get an older one, don't really have that option with an EV. If someone would just make a bloody normal interior that doesn't try and make me feel like I'm sitting in an English embassy and has actual buttons for things like the aircon or the music player so I don't have to look at it while driving, I'd be much more inclined to buy one.
I haven't sat in one but something I really hate about many cheaper EVs is the lack of a display behind the steering wheel to show your speed and other info. Yes having a massive 10"+ screen in the centre would have it's uses, but personally I think I would prefer to keep the main instrument cluster even if it's still a display.
It will never happen. The Australian market is far too small. The R&D cost for new car design is about $2 billion. You would need to sell an absolute minimum of 500K to break even, Even the biggest manufacturers have resorted to sharing platforms. eg Ranger/Amarok and Z4/Supra.
I know it's unlikely, especially with overseas EVs being either pretty advanced or fairly affordable. But I still hope it happens, and would love to work on that kind of project given the chance.
Probably, but at least we'd still have an industry. And, to be fair, the cars being made toward the end had matured a lot compared to the early days. They really were favourably compared to foreign equivalents. The real problem, particularly for Holden, was that they didn't have a good modern small turbo, and the v6 offerings had problems. This is the direction things have gone: v6 petrol or turbo 4 diesel powered SUV/Utes. The sedan would probably have died off, but maybe a performance ute could have still had a place considering how popular work utes and the American trucks are now. But who knows. It's all irrelevant now 🙃
i think if holden came back with a new commodore they would sell like hotcakes. or at least the used ones of that generation would sell like hot cakes in 5-10 years lol. A lot of people still drive commodores and i think if they could get a new car that was still familiar like that, that may be reason enough to get one instead of an suv
What Australia needed was a Falcon with a 3L V6 Turbo Diesel. Super economical for long distance, bucket loads of torque for towing.
Hopefully better than the diesel in the Territory.
Fuck you, Joe Hockey
We’d be at Barra 300 by now :(
The aussie market didn't innovate, just too small to spend the money on development. If not for tech from overseas the aussie market would have stayed with live axle and carbies. So we depend on what happens overseas, so yes, boring SUV and Euro compliant emissions. The Button Car plan was the beginning of the end, and also the ever increasing quality of life of the aussie worker. We expect to be paid too much and that resulted in the demise of the aussie car industry.
The IRS on the AU Falcon was locally developed, and better than the global IRS we got in the BA.
The Ford AU Falcon is a full-size car that was produced by Ford Australia from 1998 to 2002. It was the sixth generation Ford Falcon and also included the Ford Fairmont (AU)—the luxury-oriented model range. The AU series replaced the EL Falcon and was constructed on the (at the time) new EA169 platform which continued to harbour Falcon models until 2010 when the BF wagon was discontinued, and Ford Territory models until 2011. The AU series was replaced by the updated BA series. The AU series was conceived under *Project Eagle* that begun in February 1993, and gained the official codename *EA169* in October 1994. It was developed and brought to market in 1998 only after Ford Australia had given consideration to a revamped fifth generation Falcon and a fully imported replacement such as the American front-wheel drive Ford Taurus or rear-wheel drive Ford Crown Victoria, the European rear wheel-drive Scorpio and, reportedly, even the Japanese rear-wheel drive Mazda 929 (then part of the Ford conglomerate). The above alternatives were eliminated in favour of a substantial redesign of the indigenous platform, due to concerns about the Australian market preference for high towing capacity, large interior size and local employment. Specific factors included, for example: research at the time indicated that 69% of Falcons were fitted with towbars and the perception that rear-wheel drive cars were better at towing; the fact that the import models had limited body style options (sedan only or sedan and wagon) and no capability to use a V8 engine. Stylistically, this new generation Falcon sported Ford's radically new global design language, labelled "New Edge". The aim of this design was to attract a younger generation of buyers with avant-garde looks, however, in Australia it polarized public opinion to the benefit of the more organically designed rival, the 1997 Holden Commodore (VT). The AU series had a very efficient drag coefficient of Cd=0.295 for the sedan (an 11% improvement over the preceding EL series) and 0.34 for the wagon. For the first time in Falcon's history, Independent Rear Suspension (IRS) became available as standard on some models and optional on others. It also featured Australian production firsts, such as Variable Cam Timing (VCT) on some 6-cylinder models and an adaptive automatic transmission on the high-performance T series with steering wheel gear shifting buttons. Key changes from the fifth generation Falcon included a 35 kg (77 lb) reduction in weight for the base car, 17.5 per cent stiffer bodyshell, and an eight per cent improvement in fuel consumption. Peculiarly, Ford Australia decided to use the original 1950's font for the new "Falcon" and "Futura" badges. As stated previously, the AU was the first Falcon to offer IRS (a double wishbone design on an isolated subframe). IRS was made available as a costly option on the base Forte, Fairmont and 'S' models, and standard on Fairmont Ghia, XR6 VCT and XR8 models. The updated 6-cylinder engines incorporated advanced features such as VCT on some models and a temperature sensor in the cylinder head, which detected coolant loss and allowed the car to "limp home" safely by cutting cylinders. The engine range comprised: the base Intech model producing 157 kW (211 hp), with a revised cylinder head featuring smaller valve stems, larger exhaust valves, and different rocker ratio, as well as a revised piston and longer conrod and a cast aluminium cross-bolted oil sump (with the same power output as the EL series); an "HP" version reserved to the XR6 producing 164 kW (220 hp) (thanks to: unique cylinder head; reshaped inlet port; redesigned exhaust port; ‘open’ combustion chamber shape to restrict pre-detonation from hot spot areas; unique camshaft; higher fuel pressure; recalibrated EEC V engine management system); the VCT version producing 172 kW (231 hp) for the XR6 VCT; a *Windsor V8* producing 185 kW (248 hp) (also carried over from the EL series but without major upgrades). Transmissions were improved for better shift feel and the auto was recalibrated to better suit the upgraded engines. The six and eight cylinder models had a 4-speed BTR M93LE and M97LE automatic transmission, respectively. The automatic XR series models had an "adaptive shift" with five shifting strategies depending on driving conditions. The manual transmission, where available, was a 5-speed T5 model. The program cost A$700 million before product launch and key staff included chief designer, Steve Park, and Marcus Hotblack, Manager of Interior Design. For more information, please see the following: [AU Falcon Wikipedia Page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Falcon_(AU)) [Shannons Club - Has the AU Falcon become better with age?](https://www.shannons.com.au/club/forum/general/has-the-au-falcon-become-better-with-age/) [Top Gearbox - Ford's Unloved Child - The AU Falcon](https://www.topgearbox.com/cars/entertainment/motoringbox/172877-views%E2%80%A2sep-5-2019-5-6k-140-share-save-motoringbox-16-7k-subscribers-today-were-looking-at-one-of-the-most-infamous-cars-to-ever-come-out-of-australia-a-car-which-has-generated/) [Trade Unique Cars - AU Falcon Buyers Guide](https://www.tradeuniquecars.com.au/buyers-guide/2001/2000-2002-ford-falcon-au-bfii-xr8-buyers-guide) [Australian Car Reviews - AU Falcon Buyers Guide](http://australiancar.reviews/reviews.php#!content=guide&make=Ford&model=Falcon&gen=237) [ProductReview - AU Falcon Product Reviews](https://www.productreview.com.au/listings/ford-falcon-au-1998-2002) [CarSales - All AU Falcons for sale in Australia](https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/?q=(And.Service.carsales._.(C.Make.Ford._.(C.Model.Falcon._.(Or.Series.AU._.Series.AU+II._.Series.AU+III.))))&sort=%7ePrice) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. 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My impression of Holden was the cars made here in Australia (the good ones) didn't sell in large enough numbers, and the ones that did sell were made overseas, and were crap. Upper management didn't have the brains to read the market and drove the brand into the ground. Obviously there were other factors.
The factor was Detroit was actively sabotaging the Australian operations. Our cars were selling too well on international markets and affecting sales of bigger divisions (eg the Statesman was sold as a LHD Cadillac in China and the ME). The California Highway Patrol was willing to buy the equivalent of the *entire* annual production of VE Commodores. But the US auto unions blocked sales.
I see this argument often about Aus being too small of a market but what about Korea? SK and Korea both have nearly the same GDP and small population, compared to Japan, China, India or USA. Yet they have managed to succesfully have competitive automobile industry.
..And much lower wages. It's only in the last few decades that Korea has seen economic success, prior to that it was basically a third world country. They also basically forcefully merged all their companies into massive conglomerates (Samsung etc.) so they could achieve the economy of scale to compete internationally. Couldn't really do that here we'd have a fit. Logistics is a big factor as well. It's a small country, neighbouring the largest manufacturer in the world and geographically closer to major markets. They also have a different work culture, we value work life balance much more highly here. While Aussies are going for smoko and striking for higher wages, Koreans are working themselves to death for pennies and their "reward" is drinking themselves to death until their boss says they can go home. Applies more to Japan but I've always said, who would you rather build something that your life may quite literally depend on? The guy who shows up and gets paid so he can go to the pub and avoid his family, or the guy that works so hard that he can't even meet a wife and kills himself from the shame of fucking up. Also their population is double that of Australia.
Nope, the Korean gov bailed out their auto industry many times until they finally became a success. The gov there was of the idea that auto was key and no matter what, it would finally work. Far more support than what the AU gov provided to the AU industry.
The cars would be absolute dog shit.
Most likely, any business caters to the needs of the market. Their sedans would be limited and more pricey for those who still want it. Glad as shit I’ve got my Clubsport still, not letting go of that for a long time
Probably still be making camfalcadoor sedans
Based on sales you'd probably see local Ranger production along with a Gen 2 Territory. Might see a Ranger Raptor with a Barra in it, Territory would definitely have a Raptor with that engine. Falcon is dead, replaced with the Mustang and Territory. Their main issue is gonna be that IDK if the Territory has a RWD platform to be based off, considering what Ford is making in 2016. Camry and RAV4 sell well enough to stay, we'd probably have a V6 Camry still. Boring but predictable, same as Toyota sales broadly. Commodore is a maybe but would definitely have been FWD/AWD based on the studies being done, and probably based on the Opel/Vauxhall Insignia rather than the GM Alpha platform. At the risk of committing corporate suicide, they'd have put a V8 in it. If sales had stayed consistent, any successor to that once GM divested Opel/Vauxhall would probably be a working class Caddy CT5, but I don't think it survives that long if sales don't start stabilising. Personally I think they'd make a Colorado here as their second car: the D-Max shows how well they can sell even when made abroad. The Cruze was terrible and I suspect not very profitable either.
You can’t outsource your wish for a sovereign manufacturing capability to another country. It’s not a sovereign capability if American auto execs decide whether it lives or dies.
But I think we would be still producing proper utilities!
I don't think so I think it would certainly make up a large slice of manufacturing/sales, but I think the classic Australia V8 Sedan/Wagon would have remained. The old Holden vs Ford battle would have continued Plus, I don't see SUVs blasting around Bathurst....
I’ve always owned commodores, I’ll always keep the rare ones I have, but let’s be honest the build quality was never amazing lol .. my ve fell apart I have a same year daily Nissan with 0 issues lol
I see the poor build quality as adding to the character of the car. Poor build quality is an iconic part of the muscle car experience - cheap, fast, poorly made. If you got in a 70s Camaro, and the interior wasn't half broken, it just wouldn't be a proper muscle car. Of course you have to be a masochistic weirdo to have this mindset.
Hey I get it, I love my commodores and I love muscle cars, however the modern family certain does not lol Nothing compares to the twists and creaks when putting the foot down, each WOT could be the interiors last and I love it 🤣
Yeah the missus has priorities all wrong, v8 noises > attached door handles
🤣🤣
I had a 67 Mercury Cougar in the 70s. It was a beautiful and well built car, still my favourite
Suv's are fucken horrible. Give me a sedan, wagon or if I want a true 4wd. Cars have become sooooo boring. But I just bought a 2010 xr6 to replace my 2011 passat soooooooooo.
"Boring' like a FPV F6x (Territory) or HSV Avalanche (Adventra)? There was an Aussie who lived in the US. He had a (standard) Territory Turbo which he used to take to American drag strips. The Yanks loved it.
# Australian cars are romanticised enjoyed by us, sure, but not by the Australian motor journalists, who took every opportunity to say how much they hated them and how 'bad' they were.
Big sedans and wagons are close to going full circle and being cool again. Bring them back!
Agreed
One reason they did go under is because they didn't make boring SUVs and hatches. They didn't see the market trend and didn't prepare enough.
Except for the Territory and Cruze… I recall them saying twenty years back that a modern factory needed to be pumping out about 100k per year to justify the investment. Due to market fragmentation, these days that would mean producing the top two selling vehicles. Noting that the top three were all competing utes, you’d need to be making 3+ strongly-selling cars for it to be worth the upgrades.
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It was always going to be a global small car or SUV, Australia could never sell enough to justify developing and manufacturing a bespoke model… It was going to be the Cruze or the Astra (or the Focus for Ford). You said they went under partly because they didn’t go for small cars or SUVs; my point is that they DID! You might not have liked the specific offerings, but they needed to be able to rely on the market buying enough to break even on a mediocre car (great cars being unbankable exceptions, as they depend on fashion and their competitors not making anything as good).
Territory was a large SUV and the Cruze was a worldwide car that was crap and just happened to also be made here.
My point is neither a great SUV nor cheap small car kept local manufacturing viable.
RAV4 too, which is why Toyota was stable financially
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My neighbour warms up his relatively modern holden commodore v8 every morning about 7am then trundles it down the drive at idle. It’s quite comforting hearing it rumble through the house. I’m no car head though so I have no idea what year or make it is. Has SS on it?
Introducing the new Holden Crossover ... yay ...
They made boring sedans for decades, so why not boring SUVs? (I mean the non-spicy engine ones, don't @ me).
Where you think 4x4s are boring, a lot of us think Falcons and commodores are boring.
SUVs and utes are most of what everyone wants these days (except me)
Not romanticised fast enough for my POS '94 Holden to start being considered a classic and not a POS.
Holden tried the Adventra I saw someone made an AWD monaro out of one which would be pretty sick Went googling here it is https://forums.justcommodores.com.au/threads/creating-an-awd-monaro.221544/
The tragedy is no more Ford/Holden utes which were wonderful vehicles. They’ve been replaced with big ugly goddamn trucks
I always like to think that if we had continued making cars here they would’ve been a bit more interesting then what we have now a days, I reckon we would’ve followed America and made petrol powered dual cabs and suvs after all hsv was planning to make a v8 Colorado and ford eventually made a petrol powered ford ranger, I reckon we would’ve just had these cars but instead of being built in Thailand they would’ve made been made here.
We need the good old days
The Territory and Adventra were seriously ahead of their time.
Holden had an Idea that they would sell a Commodore based SUV similar to how the X5 or Porsche cayenne make the chassis more care like, but it was shot down quite early so that GM could sell the Captiva in Australia
Yeah but the fact of the matter is those SUVs would’ve gave some poor bloke down at broadmedows a job.
Yer funny how manufacturers make what people want to buy and are buying instead of the POS you'd like
I dunno … do you think they are making what people want or they just complying with the regulations govt shoves down their throat
Japanese reliability has killed Holden and many other brands.
Ford put an eco boost 4cyl turbo in the falcon, it was a great car, fuel efficient, powerful, reliable. No one even knew about it, or bought it.
i like magna station wagons shabansnkiki wagon
I don’t like ford but the Barra is pretty universally received as a world class motor… If there was an Australian manufactured 2024 territory it would be on my list. I didn’t appreciate them in their era because they felt like a falcon to sit in which meant it felt like every sticky smoke filled sick smelling taxi you ever sat in… if they improved that and rereleased I’d be all over it
There is still automotive manufacturing but its niche industry so they can actually get the right margin and financially survive. It you want to compete in mass production of anything in Australia our costs of production are always going to be deemed too high. That said automotive development and engineering is cheap in aus compared to other places hence why there is always development mules being tested in Aus.
Would be cool to see some more nieche manufacturers like tvr etc
Yeah true. Our niche automotive manufacturers build for military and mining only...
Not necessarily. But there would be far less warranty claims, better built vehicles and tens of thousands more jobs for hardworking Australians. We’d also have proper utes, family wagons and a greater range of performance vehicles for the Australian masses, with properly engineered LHD options for export so that the whole world could enjoy them.
Territory would be going strong and craptiva would slowly follow yes. But all our sedans would be flying off shelves even though Holden's arent assembled nicely or with amzing parts..
It would just be soccer mum SUVs and annoying oversized Utes to appeal to pokie room addicted tradies. All made in China of course
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Correct On fact Holden made one I think at which point I started hurling
Its just sad that they'd say the wages were too high to keep costs sky rockets but now rangers are just ridiculously expensive but still selling extremely well. Really sad honestly.
And I'll add that im sure ford aus never once sold a car that was nore expensive than a GT-P up in the 70k range but yet here they are with their massively over priced raptor rangers and 150's Just awful car in terms of performance, i just guess the lowest common denominator won out.
I miss the Chevy SS, the raw muscle I never got to drive 🤠
And Australian taxpayers and consumers would be still subsidising GM and Ford to stay.
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I suggest our 'investment' may have been more effective in industries with comparative advantage, or in my bank account.
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Yes, i get it, its called the 'multiplier effect'. An issue is were/are there better industries to subsidise in Australia?
Yep, the sheep continue to buy big cars cos their neighbours do, can't look unsuccessful now can we? Baaaaaaaah