R.I.P Ford Falcon Wagon 1960-2010

Ford Australia has just announced that it will discontinue the Falcon wagon this year, with the final wagon rolling off the line in June.

The news comes after reports last year that Ford was considering ditching the wagon.

Ford boss Marin Burela said that after an internal review and customer feedback, the time had come to retire the Falcon wagon, but that Ford Australia hoped to replace it with a diesel version of the Mondeo wagon – a model already established in the European market.

“It’s done an outstanding job for us over the years and has certainly delivered to customer expectation,” Mr Burela said.

“We’re very, very comfortable with the decision. It was a great car then ¦ it still is a great car now, but we’re moving forward.”

While the Falcon wagon has been a part of the Australian and Kiwi Ford line-up since 1960, the current BF Mk III model was not updated in the newer FG Falcon line-up.

Recently, most of the Falcon wagon’s sales are to fleet purchasers. Last year, Falcon wagon sales counted for only 2500 of the 31,000 total Falcon sales in Australia.

The current model Falcon wagon is only available in bare-bones XT specification, and Ford Australia is banking that the Mondeo’s higher-spec wagon models will result in solid sales.

An end to the Falcon wagon isn’t a total shock, with Ford devoting little development time to the model. By comparison Holden has kept its Commodore wagon alive with the sharp looking VE-based Sportswagon.

Mr Burela said that one advantage of discontinuing the Falcon wagon and shifting to the imported Mondeo wagon is that the company’s Broadmeadows plant will now gain capacity for other variants, including the upcoming turbocharged four-cylinder Falcon.

After a full half century of production, the Falcon Wagon has officially reached the point of extinction.

Jaguar X-Type left to die quietly

The X-Type Jaguar compact luxury sedan has finally met its maker. Production will end in December and that means the end of Ford’s experimental involvement with the Jaguar brand.

Back in 2002 when Ford added a reworked Mondeo to the Jaguar lineup hopes were high. With all-wheel drive, modern but familiar styling and a fancy interior, the Jaguar X-Type won positive reviews for its handling but little else. At a time when Lexus, BMW and Mercedes were just doing a better job with smaller sedans, Jaguar’s gamble damaged its reputation.

The X-Type slowly declined on sales charts globally and now used versions are sold relatively cheaply despite its virtues like good handling, a more roomy wagon version, and all-wheel drive.

Jaguar did build more than 350,000 X-Types in eight years, which makes it the highest-volume Jaguar ever which is impressive in its own right. However, since the sale of Jaguar by Ford to Tata, the new direction of fewer customers, fewer cars and a more exclusive image has been aided by the introduction of the 2010 Jaguar XJ sedan. Whether it permanently fixes Jaguar’s problem of making great cars but selling too few of them remains to be seen.