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February 1961 is when Ford Falcon Ute production started in Australia and 439,742 examples later it finished at 3pm on July 29, 2016.
The Ute has long been part of Ford’s three-tier Broadmeadows-built range, but the Falcon sedan and Territory SUV will continue until October 7 this year. A white FG X XR6 was the final Falcon Ute produced and will be retained by Ford Australia.
It wasn’t always that way, so let’s press rewind and farewell Ford’s own concept – a Gippsland farmer’s wife in 1933 wrote to Ford with the request for a car to go to church in on Sunday and take the pigs to market on Monday and so Ford’s 1934 Coupe Utility was born – with five of the Falcon ute’s finest moments.
1. Genesis, with V8s hot on its heels
The 1971 XY added the now famous ‘351’ or 5750cc V8 engine, but less than a decade later big cubes went with the 1978 XC as a new generation of Falcon Ute emerged in 1979 XD guise, which topped out at 4.9-litre V8 guise.
2. Return of the V8
While the Blue Oval re-fired with V8 power in 1991 under the bonnet of the Falcon sedan, it would take until 1997 for the Falcon Ute to again be motivated by eight cylinders. Astonishingly, the XH II was still based on the XD of 15 years prior, sharing its chassis/body/interior architecture.
In the decade-and-a-half between the two V8-powered utes, the freshly minted XR8 more than tripled the last flagship ute’s price – at $37,305 – with a 185kW/402Nm 5.0-litre V8 under the bonnet.
The Barra 4.0-litre six-cylinder turbo was always hot on the V8’s heels, with today’s XR6 Turbo outputs (270kW/533Nm) unchanged since the 2008 FG, which back then challenged the 290kW/520Nm V8.
4. Beating the opposition
A full 13,698 Falcon Utes were shifted in 2000 compared with 6361 Commodore Utes. Even Holden’s VT-based VU of 2001 barely turned the tide, with Falcon Ute’s best ever sales year of 20,212 ahead of Commodore Ute’s 17,211 that year.
5. Expanding the breed
It forced Holden’s hand to make Commodore Ute a ‘one tonner’ for the VY, which also borrowed the Adventra’s all-wheel-drive system to (briefly) steal a sales lead in 2005 and 2006.
Ford’s clever RTV – Rugged Terrain Vehicle – lobbed in 2003 as a jacked-up Falcon Ute with bush-friendly tyres, raised ride height and (although it lacked AWD) a locking rear differential.
