WHY DO SO MANY AUSSIES FROTH V8 HOLDENS, NOT V8 FALCONS?
Have you watched the latest episode with MOOG diving into why his beloved Falcon XR8 drift taxi did a big mechanical sad at the last MCM drift night? You can WATCH IT HERE and witness the (pretty epic) carnage.
Understanding why people love the six-cylinder BA-FG Falcons over the V8s is pretty easy when the XR6T had the iconic Barra engine that made more power when you looked at it sternly. But why do so many Aussies, particularly those from 25-50 years old, have such a sentimental draw to V8 Holdens over Ford Falcon V8s?
The answer comes from something which happened in 1982.
Ford had driven their big, burly Falcons through the 70s with the XA, XB (see above), and XC models boasting more interior space and bigger engines than what the competitors at Holden or Chrysler could offer. They'd started the Aussie muscle car wars in 1967 with the original XR Falcon GT, sporting lots of parts from the Ford Mustang, like the 289 V8, four-speed manual, steering wheel, go-fast stripes and bright gold paint, but by the launch of the XA Falcon in 1972 there were thumping 351 cubic-inch V8s under the bonnet promising up to 380hp.
The idea of a big brutish Falcon had been welcomed by Aussies, and GM-H and Chysler had responded in the early 70s by up-sizing their own large cars. The Holden Kingswood (and Monaro), and Chrysler Valiant and Regal grew nearly a full platform size to take the big-bodied fight to Falcon, which was booming in sales by the late 70s.
The big, roomy, hard-wearing Falcons were beloved by taxi operators, cops, and fleet buyers. These things could be hucked over kerbs without folding in half, and there was all sorts of space to relax while carrying your workmates or work gear. Fleet sales were how Aussie car manufacturing survived in those days, so appeasing this market was key.
Then, in 1978 something shocking happened...
Holden replaced the iconic big-hipped Kingswood with a mid-size Commodore model. A pastiche of two Opel models heavily re-engineered for Aussie conditions, it was tiny compared to the enormous, all-new XD Falcon.
Holden figured a smaller car would woo buyers conscious of fuel mileage, while Ford added a smaller six-cylinder engine option but kept the big, roomy, full-size Falcon. Despite two V8 engine options in a small-sized, good-handling car, the Commodore bombed and the Falcon boomed.
Fleet buyers swarmed to the big, new Falcon in droves and it took almost a full decade for Holden to claw back the sales it lost to Falcon. Even with the legendary Peter Brock winning on the race track like crazy in the early 80s, Holden just couldn't convince interior space-obsessed Aussies to buy Commodore.
So where did Falcon lose the V8 market?
In their chase for efficiency, Ford decided to drop the V8 engine option in 1982. The annoucement was met by the thundrous clap from millions of palms slapping forcibly against the foreheads of exasperated Aussies. How could FORD, the company that STARTED the V8 Aussie muscle car scene walk away from the very concept it'd had started, and then fostered dilligently for years?!
It pissed a bunch of people off when Ford dropped the GT option from the Falcon range with the launch of the XC model in 1976, but that was nothing compared to the OUTRAGE many Aussies felt when the news dropped they wouldn't even be able to get a V8 Falcon. In the decades before turbo-diesel utes and SUVs, you'd tow your caravan, boat, trailer or horse float with a big, Aussie V8 station wagon.
And now Ford were dogging the boys all round. Mutts.
Now, Holden had binned the slow-selling Monaro soon after Ford removed the GT model from Falcon. Thanks in part to new emissions laws strangling cars, Aussies had taken a pause on shouty racing stripe-equipped muscle cars painted like easter eggs in the mid-70s. That said, the mid-size Holden Torana could still be bought as a racing homologation model (A9X) with fat fender flares, reverse cowl scoop, and thunping 308ci (5-litre) V8.
When Holden launched the Commodore in 1978 it killed off the Torana and Kingswood models for 1980, so they knew they needed a car to homologate for the local touring car racing, which was still very big business. Enter their star driver, Peter Brock, who'd just bought the Holden Dealer Team: Holden's satellite factory race team.
And the Aussie performance car scene was about to be revolutionised by him.
Brocky was the most-popular racer in Australia, even past his death in 2006, and was the most successful racer ever at the Bathurst 1000 race. In 1980 Bathurst stopped the nation, so success on Mount Panorama was paramount.
Brock started building hot, tuned-up road-going Commodores at his HDT workshop to homolgate them for racing. Eventually he'd add lesser trim spec Commodores to his model range to broaden the appeal of an HDT-tuned vehicle.
Over in Broadmeadows Ford had the ESP model. It stood for the European Sports Pack and it gave you alloys, an optional 302ci Windsor V8 or the full-fat 351 Cleveland, along with upgraded seats and handling, and a very mild bodykit. But it looked like a taxi compared to the ground-pounding, be-striped Falcon GTs of years past.
And then, in 1982, it was gone.
Ford said V8 sales had slowed to a point that it was obvious nobody wanted a V8. So they cut it. But the ESP wasn't marketed well. Compared to Holden shouting about the V8 SL/E and HDT Commodores from the rooftops, Ford kept the V8 option in the Falcon almost a secret.
Holden nearly followed suit in 1985. The news Australia was switching to unleaded fuel on 1 January 1986 would mean their 253ci and 308ci V8s would need to be re-engineered to run on the fuel and burn through a catalytic convertor, and - frankly - Holden didn't have that kinda hooch to pay for such work after the Commodore sales bomb. It was only the Editor of Street Machine Magazine organising a huge grassroots campaign called "V8s Til 98" that saved it until the LS1 appeared in Australia in 2000.
So, if you were a red-blooded Aussie who drove V8s and watched Bathurst every year, passionately screaming for your favourite Ford driver, what did you go buy when there was no V8 Falcon? Some rusted-on Falcon fans refused to be swayed, but their kids grew up remembering how Ford had ditched the V8 and left the Falcon without any sort of performance option.
Meanwhile, Brocky was dominating the race track and road car sales...
Lots of 80s kids grew up in Australia understanding that blokes who won drove V8 Commodores. They saw them in the street, and most of us knew SOMEONE who had a thumping five-litre Commodore at some point. While we later discovered the unbridled joy of turbo Japanese performance cars and sweet-handling European machinery, there's a huge slice of national pride to see something like an Australian-designed, Australian-built car that you know is a fast thing sitting in the street.
Ford didn't reintroduce the V8 for 10 years, eventually bringing it back in 1991 with the EB Falcon's XR8 and 25th Anniversary GT models. But the damage had been done and a good slice of the V8 heartland that was once died-in-the-wool Ford V8 fans no longer bled blue.
