Jim Grey’s recent post of a 1961 Falcon prompted me to bring out a pre-emptive CC-effect find I saw a few months ago; one of the first update of the Australian Falcon in what I think is a slightly different setting. While the full story hasn’t been told yet on CC, there was some discussion here relating to early issues. The first facelift of the Australian Falcon came nearly 2 years after its introduction, and caught up with the changes to the US Falcon plus a few more that were, ahem, necessary.
The early Falcons in Australia had a lot of problems, because despite the promotional film linked above might have said, local testing was minimal. In 1960’s Australia you would have had to try hard not to drive on an unsealed road from time to time, and with its market positioning as Ford’s mainstream family car the demands were quite different from those of the North American version. Ford’s engineering team addressed the issues as quickly as possible, with most of the issues addressed (if not completely resolved) by August 1962 when the XL model Falcon was released with the slogan Trim, Taut and Terrific.
The styling revisions are clear, with a new grille not shared with the American car, but it did have the new squarer ‘Thunderbird’ roof line of the 1962 US Falcon and the indicator/park lights were also moved into the bumper. Similar to the North American car there were more trim levels available, but of course the 2-door sedan that Jim saw was not sold here – we had 4-door sedans and wagons only. Presumably it was the changes under the skin that were of greater interest to existing Falcon owners: an upgraded front suspension, new clutch, air cleaner, starter, carburettor and revised gearbox. There was still work to be done, both on the car itself and its image, but things were turning around.
This car was shot in an inner-city suburb (3 miles from the centre of Melbourne) that was once a very working-class area and has not been completely gentrified. Most of the terrace houses (non-detached) would now be valued at a million dollars or so (or more!) but don’t have off-street parking which tends to cap the value of cars parked on the streets. Some of the public schools in Melbourne have the reputation to draw people to move within the catchment area, but this is not necessarily one. Plenty have been demolished for apartment blocks, and most residents could probably do without a car for their day-to-day travel. Just the place for a Falcon that you can cruise around in when necessary, but will not attract jealous vandalism.
Predicting the Brazilian Maverick would be spending a lot more time on gravel roads than the American ones, Ford instaled a “off the shelf” bigger air filter. The problem was, it was too big to shut the hood properly. They fixed it dropping the engine a bit lower using smaller motor mounts.
It created a big problem when a owner decides to instal a pair of performance headers.
That must be the V8, since didn’t Brazilian Mavericks go straight from having been adapted tor the ancient Willys 6 to the 2.3 four as a standard engine?
I see the styling changes on non-US local-market cars like this and feel like they’re out of some alternate universe!
Is it just me, or are these wheels larger than the 13 inch versions on the American Falcons? These look like much meatier tires than I am used to seeing on these cars, but they look good on it.
I remember seeing the occasional car with those blinds in the back window. They always looked a little dorky to me, but I would bet they would make the interior a more pleasant place to be on a sunny day.
That’s the gist of the ’62 makeover for the AU Falcons. The original ’60 version did not acquit itself well on the rough rural roads of Australia, which then represented a much higher percentage of typical driving. So the ’62 got the new sturdier underpinnings from the ’62 US Fairlane, including the 14″ wheels.
The same thing happened in the US with the V8 versions of the Falcon, and then Mustang; they also got the Fairlane suspension, 5 lug hubs, 14″ wheels, etc. But the US 6 cylinder models kept the original more delicate setup and 13 inchers.
They still had 13″ wheels at this stage, I expect that this car has had the wheels changed to be able to source better tyres. These days the older ‘standard’ sizes may only available in brands you have barely heard of or worse.
Going ‘plus one’ in wheel diameter puts you into a lower profile, more modern tyre design that at a guess would be shared with medium size cars from the 80s or small cars from the 90s and thus available from ‘good’ tyre manufacturers.
Ok. My understanding was that at least some of the sturdier suspension components developed for the US Fairlane were incorporated into the AUS Falcon to remedy the initial weaknesses in that area. Maybe you could have used this opportunity to be more specific what exactly those changes were?
We’ve repeatedly been told by readers in Australia and Bryce that the 1960 Falcon was not up to the rugged roads in Australia and NZ. And that changes were made, with hints about the incorporation of Fairlane components. What was the real story?
A friend has a 63 Falcon wagon that is still on four stud axles its quite a survivor and very rare,
I will look into it Paul. The first step was the ball joints were changed to the Fairlane items, off the top of my head the ride height was increased too. Utes and possibly panel vans had five students wheels.
I’ve read that there was some underbody strengthening added with each model, and Ford’s sales literature of the time certainly highlighted that. Word would have got out fast enough if there wasn’t some truth to it. But as to exactly what was done – good luck finding out, John.
Pete you are right, and I don’t know that anyone who didn’t work in the factory across those years will know the exact details. There is some info on the basic changes done at least, which were usually introduced as running changes, but only ‘announced’ with new model changes. Makes sense from a PR point of view of course.
..”with its market positioning as Ford’s mainstream family car the demands were quite different .”
Aha! I’ve read several articles about the failure of Falcons in Australia, but the articles didn’t mention this difference so the failure seemed puzzling.
Americans who drove on country roads liked Fords, but they stuck with big Fords and pickups. The Falcon was an urban commuting and shopping car.
The full-size Ford Galaxie was still built here at the time, but it was more of an upmarket car and compared to US models I don’t think the strippo versions were sold here. If you could afford the running costs you wanted a luxury car.
The Holden had moved the centre of gravity of the market to a size in between the size of US and British cars, and the Falcon and Valiant were ideal for a response. Well, almost. I will have to do some more posts about how things evolved further.
Ford AU replaced the UK Zephyr with the Falcon, the Zephyrs were tough old things, the Falcon was a bit lightly engineered in comparism.
In Argentina during two trips there around 1990 I saw plenty of this type of Falcon as four door sedans and wagons. They were still quite common then.
Don’t know when the Falcon came to Argentina but surely the conditions there warranted adoption of Australian type improvements too.
The first-gen Falcon was produced in Argentina until 1991, with plenty of evolution.
It would be interesting to know how much transfer there was from the US vs Australia, for example the Rural station wagon had a similar short rear overhang to the Australian wagon, and was introduced in 1967 after the Australian first-gen production finished in 1966. It wasn’t identical to the Australian wagon, the D pillar was redesigned to have flat side glass (rather than the wrap-around Aus/US type) and a more modern style.
The car you pictured looks better than any Falcon I have ever seen in the US. All we got over here for ’67 was a large economy size Mustang masquerading as a Falcon.
That one has the 1982 Argentinian facelift – not sure it looks as good in that context?
Same colour snap
Great shot Don. “Hospital green” was pretty popular, I think the proper name was Kurrajong Green named after a little town in the Blue Mountains out of Sydney.
Edit: Just had a thought that a comment about why these 4-door sedan is as close as we will get to Jim’s 2-door from last week – the only 2-door cars here were the ute and panel van. All Falcon sedans and wagons were 4-door.
Found another. These shots are old from when my last camera had a strong warm bias, so the green is distorted. It’s a different green. Native name not known.
That was very popular on XL Falcons. Dad always called it dark aqua – I never did know the factory name. We had one, and so did our neighbours on both sides. Used to be fun to look out the front of our place and see three identical cars!
I went out with two girls, one after the other, who both had cream XLs. hehehe
XM and XP Aussie Falcs could be had as a 2-door hardtop, and one of my Ford history books shows one that Ford Australia fitted with a retractable hardtop/
In regards to the durability issues of the first Falcon, my History of Ford in Australia book confirms the ball joints were the #1 culprit and the Fairlane ball joints were introduced as a running change.
It was also how Ford got the proving ground built near Geelong.
When Henry Ford wanted to know why it wasn’t discovered when testing, he was told Australia relied on the US for testing, so Henry said go build a test track and don’t ever come back to me with a durability problem again.
I’m pretty sure this car used to be parked near my house in Hawthorn, however I was always paying more attention the red Fiat 130 coupe that was parked on the same block.
I know the one you mean. Caught it in the top left corner of this shot; same green as John’s. Fiat:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-classic-1972-77-fiat-130-coupe-bill-mitchells-regards/
There is a silver 130 Coupe only around the corner from where the red coupe and the Falcon were, so unusually those beautiful Fiats aren’t particularly rare in West Hawthorn
Don’t think I’ve seen that silver one around.
No, the Hawthorn Falcon is an XM, and is still parked there. It’s getting rather shabby. It belongs to the affable owner of the red 130, which has gone into storage.
So wait a minute. You’re all neighbours? Everybody needs good neighbours.
might be this one
The strengthening of the Falcon is all a bit shrouded. The problem began when Detroit said late in the piece that Geelong had to make the Falcon, a 5-year lifespan US economy car, instead of the English Zephyr, which, as Bryce often points out, had a name for toughness here. Australians at that time kept cars for a long time, and used them on the available roads, most of which were far from city-standard outside the capitals. That’s hardly a good role for a throwaway design. A Ford engineer from the time, now long retired, said “Frankly, it was a heap of shit.” They tried to tell the company, but were told not to complain, though Ford subsequently paid 750,000 pounds for the proving ground, and over a million pounds – big money- to upgrade the car for the ’65 XP. All that said, you can see why an insular HQ would say to sell the Falcon, as it looked a great deal newer than the Holden competitor, and was generally a good looker. Certainly prettier than the available Zephyr.
I seem to recall reading that the ball-joints were English imports (logical under Empire tariff preference rules) and the manufacturing method was different to the US ones. The change to larger Fairlane ones came early during the run. Wishbone mounting points were strengthened, wheels were made stronger, and autos received watercooling. It seems quite possible that the balljoint failures, which would have to have all been dramatic, would very quickly give a car a bad name, perhaps worse than the overall reality. That said, by the time of the XP Falcon in ’65, which truly had had local testing, the changes were extensive enough that it actually had box sections from the US convertible added.
I was reading that same book jonco referred to tonight. It seems that they changed to Fairlane ball joints as soon as they were available, so perhaps late 1960 for the US 1961 model year. Nothing like having the boss (HFII) and the right guy (Dykstra) to make things happen.
They were in the process of purchasing English machinery to produce the ball joints, but cancelled that because of the different processes when the Fairlane fix worked.
Another point was the clutch which was noted as poor and shuddering on the first Falcon prototype in the country, and that the warranty rate was over 100%! This means that initial replacements were failing too.
A lot of ground to cover, and to think I probably spent more time trying to find the photos for this post after reading Jim’s (they were on the dead USB stick so had to find the backup of the not-renamed originals) than writing it. I am pretty sure that most of the significant changes happened before or after the XL model itself, but will elaborate in a future post.
One last detail relating to the XL is sales slumped due to a credit crunch as well as the car problems and Ford ended up having to find offsite storage for unsold cars (after filling the not inconsiderable land around the factories), which turned out to be within sight of Holden at Fishermans Bend. Plus a surplus of floor pressings delayed the introduction of body strengthening while they ran them out in early XM’s.
The saga of the Australian Falcon is a fascinating one. It got off to a rocky start, but Ford stuck with the car, and made it a success.
On the Old Car Manual Project, there is scanned copy of a newspaper insert listing – in great detail – all of the improvements that Ford has made to the XM Falcon. Also listed are the “benefits to the customer” offered by each improvement.
It’s a remarkable advertisement by today’s standards – I can’t imagine any company producing an advertisement of this depth and detail in 2018. But it shows how intent Ford was on saving the Falcon’s reputation.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/index.php/Australia-2/Ford/Falcon/1964-Ford-Falcon/1964-Falcon-Newspaper-Insert-03