Guilty Pleasure In Electric Papaya Paint

The Age

Wednesday July 16, 2008

The tester: Andrew Heasley

FORD FG FALCON XR6 TURBO AUTO

The price: From $46,990 (a)

Vital statistics: 4.0-litre, turbo in-line 6-cyl. 270 kW/533 Nm, optional six-speed ZF auto; 11.71/100km, 281g C02/km (official)

WHY WE'RE DRIVING IT

This is Ford Australia's new performance car and despite having driven 2000km to Brisbane in the new Falcon range, we hadn't lived with an XR6T for everyday suburban commuting.

LIKES

It's funny (in a curious way) that this car was able to lift a sullen mood. After researching mankind's impending doom all week (fuel prices, economic downturn, climate change) amid a bleak Melbourne winter, I was feeling despondent.

We picked up the new Falcon XR6 Turbo and it seemed to embody everything that's wrong with the auto world's thinking and product planning. Here is a huge car, with a big, powerful engine, massive tyres and lairy electric papaya paint. I felt guilty

just getting behind the wheel.

Forty minutes later, I was feeling surprisingly chipper. The transformation began from idling. There's no caveman-like lumpy idle, just a fairly even hum.

As I coasted on to the wet roads and squeezed the accelerator, it zoomed into a slot in the traffic, without hoony antics in the wet. Each gear change occurred quietly. The suspension tune and steering are brilliant. After a week of city commuting the computer was reading 13.8L/100km - under what mid-sized SUVs get around town. Considering a V8 would be reading upwards of 16L in these conditions, it seemed a reasonable outcome.

DISLIKES

While the inclusion of stability control as standard is commendable, curtain airbags are a big omission from the performance model (they're an optional extra). C'mon Ford, get with it - make curtain bags standard, as Holden and Toyota do on their big cars. Paddle shifters on the steering wheel would be a perfect match for the transmission but alas they're not offered. The example we drove had a slight "heart murmur" at idle, something I hadn't encountered before in other examples. The foam in the seats is a bit soft. The car's size makes it difficult to park. Dash buttons are small and there's no illumination of door buttons at night.

WOULD I BUY ONE?

I'm not a muscle car fan and understand why whenever we try a car like this we receive emails of outrage. But for the type of vehicle, it's peerless for the money. There's little that comes close as regards the acreages of sheet metal, performance on tap through a sophisticated six-speed automatic and delivers relative frugality if you are sensible with the accelerator or mainly drive at highway speeds. But it's too politically incorrect for the times, sono.

© 2008 The Age

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