"You guys are obsessed with rear wheel drive," Alan Mulally mused to the Australian press after a browbeating about which pair of wheels might propel the Falcon into the future. Try as they might, the Ford Chief would not be pinned down about the chassis architecture of future Falcons, saying only that the choice would be customer driven, and plugging front and all-wheel drive vehicles as "pretty spectacular."
Mulally is right that Ford's global push to put exceptional small cars in showrooms is what the automaker's focus is and should be. The Falcon has long fallen off its sales peak from the halcyon days of two decades ago, and while Mulally agrees that it's "an absolutely dynamite vehicle," small cars in the future will prop up the more niche-y vehicles like the FG Falcon. Mulally went on to say that Australia will serve as an engineering and product development outpost for Ford, and the big-vehicle prowess in Oz will be useful regardless of layout. As Ford pulls its global platforms together, the Ranger and Focus will come at us from Australia, too.
All around the world, thousands upon thousands of automotive enthusiasts wait with baited breath, remote controls, YouTube clicks and torrent downloads for new episodes of Top Gear. Some satiate their cravings with Final Gear in the meantime, but as Clarkson and company seek to rebuild the British empire one commercial deal at a time, soon we'll have two new series to keep our interests piqued. Because not only are we getting our own version of Top Gear here in the United States, so our own mates down in Australia.
While the American pilot has already been shot, Down Under they're just gearing up, and they're now accepting applications for tickets to the filming of the first episode of Top Gear Australia. So if you live in the Outback, put down your boomerang and ride your kangaroo Holden over to the Special Broadcasting Service website to fill out the form.
After holding the title for just over six months, the President of Ford Australia has resigned and is moving to the United States to "fulfill a career dream." President Bill Osborne, who took the position only in February, insists his departure has nothing to do with the fact that the company just announced 350 jobs will be cut at Victorian plants. Mr. Osborne is mum on where he is heading, although a company spokesperson said it is outside the automotive industry. Ford has not announced a replacement, but the new boss will have his or her work cut out as the Australian market adjusts from its high-horsepower diet to more fuel efficient vehicles. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Click above for more spy shots of the G8 GXP from G8 Nation
Although we thoroughly enjoyed the fleeting time we spent with the Pontiac G8 GT, what whith its 361 horsepower and 385 pound-feet of torque and all, it's the upcoming GXP model that truly looks to catapult the Australian-bred sedan back into musclecar territory. We, along with just about every other gearhead, are especially looking forward to the six-speed stick and clutch pedal with which the 6.2-liter LS3 V8 making 402 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque will be paired. Of course, the rest of the car needs to be up to snuff too, so we are happy to take a gander at these spy photos of a pre-production prototype in Australia that indicate the nineteen-inch GXP-specific wheels and big Brembo disc brakes are present and accounted for. A slightly revised front fascia with a lower splitter combine with the rear diffuser to further signify that this is the high-zoot version of Pontiac's sport sedan.
Click the image above for a gallery of Axel Peemoeller's 3-D signage
Elvis lives. Tupac lives. And we have just discovered that M. C. Escher is also alive, well, living in Australia, and going by the name of Axel Peemoeller. Designer Peemoeller worked out the math to create, optically, directional signage that appears to hang in the air. Found in the carpark of the Eureka Tower in Melbourne, there's no technowizardy here, just a man with a can of paint and a few severely skewed letters. The result: mindbending. And bloody genius. Well done, Mr. Escher Peemoeller. Check out the gallery below for more of Axel's work.
The exorbitant amount of money required to participate in an Australian auto show has resulted in automakers demanding a cut to one show per year. The shows in Sydney and Melbourne would need to alternate years for this to happen, but the two shows are run by different groups that don't want to give up the income. Cash-strapped automakers have already begun selectively attending the two shows, with big-time brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz joining 12 other automakers that skipped out on this year's Melbourne show. Sydney and Melbourne organizers are getting the hint, and the two sides are discussing how best to move forward. Word is that the show count will be reduced to only one next year.
The move to alternating shows makes sense, and there is precedent to support it. The Paris and Frankfurt motor shows alternate each year, and both are far larger events than what the car-crazed Aussies put together. Tokyo is also a huge show, and it runs on a bi-annual basis, split between passenger vehicles on odd years and commercial rides on even years. Sorry, but we won't be covering Japan's trucks this October.
Think "Elfin" and you're liable to (quite aptly) conjure up images of point-eared fantasy creatures (thank you Mr. Tolkien and Jackson). But to Lotus and Caterham fans, a group as enthusiastic to its realm as hobbit geeks are to theirs, Elfin is another beast entirely. Sprightly though they are, Elfin sportscars offer some of the best power-to-weight ratios on the market. But as we reported previously, the Australian niche automaker is preparing to bust out of the confines of the Super-7 kit-car scene with an entirely new model of its own.
Known internally as the Type 5, the new vehicle is targeted at the likes of the Lotus Elise and Ariel Atom as an open-air track-car. Power will come from the turbocharged four in the Pontiac Solstice GXP and Saturn Sky Redline, packaged in a completely new chassis with styling penned by sister company HSV's design studio. Pricing, released along with the design sketch you see above, is pegged at AUS $65,000 (approximately $63k in today's devalued American greenbacks). That's significantly less than a supercharged Elise, but with more power and even less weight, which sources suggest should allow it to hit sixty in a scant 3.7 seconds. We'll be watching closely to bring you the latest once the Elfin Type 5, or whatever Tom Walkinshaw's outfit chooses to call the vehicle, makes its anticipated debut down under sometime next month.
"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts." That's what Han Solo says about the Millenium Falcon. You could apply the same saying to the HSV W427 super-duper sedan just launched by Holden's in-house performance division. I mean, that front end has some serious issues, but the Corvette Z06's LS7 V8 lurks behind it, and it's no joke, giving the four-door 500 horses and 471 lb-ft of torque. Production is limited to 427 units total, 90 of which will be produced this year. All of those have already been spoken for at a heady $154,500 Australian dollars, including luxury tax. Buyers also get the opportunity to tour the cars' production facility, and get a letter from Tom Walkinshaw, who started HSV some 20 years ago. The "W" in the car's name is also a tribute to him. HSV says that the W427's angry fascia emphasizes the cooling needs of the 7.0L V8. We think it mostly tells drivers who catch it racing up in their rearview to simply move out of the way...or be swallowed whole. We hear the car runs best when fed a steady diet of FPVs.
A slew of new photos have dropped in conjunction with the car's production launch, all of which can be seen in the gallery below.
Click above for high-res gallery of the Camaro's Melbourne reveal
While General Motors debuted the 2010 Chevy Camaro in Detroit and L.A. on Monday, they also gave it a proper debut in Australia where much of the car's development work was performed. The General just published some new pictures from the car's Melbourne debut in which the new Camaro poses for the camera with a second generation model, two third generation models, a fourth gen and a very cherry 1969 Camaro SS owned by reigning V8 Supercar champion Garth Tander. Those pics plus GM's own shots that were taken at the live reveal in Detroit have been added to the first gallery below, beneath which we've included our own updated gallery of live shots from the Detroit reveal that includes images of the car after it was driven outside.
Click above for photo gallery. Follow the jump for the video.
Ford Performance Vehicles' new range of Ford FG Falcon-derived super sedans and utes is mind-bendingly appealing. Big turbocharged or NA power, bright colors, and that menacing Alice Cooper eye makeup in front make for an entire farmer's market of forbidden fruit. Sure, on this side of the world, Ford's SVT performance division gives us the Shelby GT500 and the even more monstrous Shelby GT500KR -- but seriously, as hot as the factory super-Stangs are, the lineup of FPV rides you see above is hot enough to turn that desert sand into glass. Only, they can't -- because everything you see there is virtual. Both the backdrop and the cars are CGI. The photo-realistic vehicle models were created using the real cars' CAD data for a brand new FPV TV spot that premieres in Australia this Sunday. If you don't live in Oz, no worries -- FPV sent us a copy of the spot, which is now embedded after the jump for your enjoyment. And you will enjoy it. Right now, there's a void in our lives shaped like an all-black FPV F6, and this commercial's as close as we're going to come to filling it.
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