Why the BA XR8 is the worst go-fast V8 Ford Falcon to buy

Maybe you've seen the latest episode of MCM where MOOG has gone all STREWTH'N'FLAMIN'GALAHS on us and bought a purple V8 Ford Falcon XR8. Sometimes he likes to go WILDLY off-reservation and do things like this, so consider this week's blog post as something of an open letter to our Nissan-loving musical tootler and drift fanatic (as well as a history lesson on V8 Falcons).

The BA XR8 Falcon was introduced in 2003 as part of a radical redesign of the Falcon range. Ford Australia had been on the back foot behind Holden ever since the blue oval dropped the V8 engine from its Falcon range in 1984, stunning Aussie buyers who had grown used to big, V8-powered family sedans from FoMoCo. Ford were even the guys who kick-started the Aussie muscle car wars of the '60s with the original Falcon XR GT of 1967.

Boasting a host of "Mustang-bred" upgrades (as the Mustang was based on the US Ford Falcon model), including a hot 289ci V8, the original Ford Falcon GT went on to become a cultural icon in Australia. And Ford, shockingly, walked away from all of that when it dropped the V8. It took until the mid 90s for the V8 performance Falcon to come back, with the go-fast Falcons sold under the XR6 and XR8 badges to differentiate the choice of 6-cylinder or V8.

They had a heck of a time clawing back the enthusiast market from Holden, who'd stolen a march on Ford with the Peter Brock-backed HDT Special Editions, and then the HSV-built hot rod Commodores. The Falcons boasted fuel-injected 302ci Windsor (5-litre) V8s and had great ride and handling, but V8 fans had long memories of when Ford left them wanting. 

The problems with the BA XR8 actually started with the earlier AU Falcon. The "New Edge" styling had polarised Aussies and still draws plenty of comment today, but against the shapely VT Holden Commodore the better handling and great engines offeredin the AUs couldn't win the war for Ford. It got so bad an urgent redesign was ordered by Detroit and this gave us the much-better-looking BA series thanks to the hard work of Scott Strong. 

Here is the AU Falcon XR8. I have warned you, don't look at it too long or this pile of hot dog vomit will make you go blind. 

The BA saw radical engineering upgrades, too. The old single-cam 6-cylinder was now the DOHC Barra, sporting a huge (for the time) 182kW in aspirated form and shocking everyone with a turbocharged variant making a wild 240kW, which was more than the 5.7-litre LS1 SS Commodore. The XR8 Falcons ditched their old pushrod Windsor engine for a 5.4-litre DOHC "Boss 5.4" based on the US Mod Motor, making 260kW while the GT Falcon returned with a 290kW Boss290 engine. 

Holden had nothing like this and, on paper, it was all there to dominate. A good-looking big, fresh four-door boofhead sled with a 260kW quad-cam V8, advanced multi-link IRS, great interior with all-new modern digital controls... but, there were significant problems.

The 3-valve 220kW V8 BAs were absolute dogs as Ford tried to make them torquey tow pigs that ran smooth, but these were never intended as performance cars. While they were rated at 260kW the Boss 5.4s somehow felt like they had half that power because of key architecture issues with the engine. 

Yes, the heads and intake manifold have amazing lungs that will flow air like crazy... but then Ford Australia hobbled them with a super-long-stroke bottom-end to try and push low-end torque. The result is the Boss 5.4s neither screamed up top nor pulled crazily down low like you'd expect from either a late-model performance car or a traditional muscle car.

The Boss V8s are also heavy. With an iron truck block from American pick-up trucks, plus the huge DOHC heads, the Boss V8s are too heavy over the V8 Falcon front-ends.   

Holden's LS V8s weren't without their own problems, but at least there was already an enormous world of aftermarket upgrades to spice them up. The Ford fanatics were quick to bring out cams, superchargers and all the rest but there were huge packaging issues in the Falcon when it came time to strap some boost into it, and there was no getting around the fact that four cams cost much more than one to buy, before you paid a King's Ransom to have a professional install them and tune them. The difference in labour costs alone for fitting cams to one of these engines could almost buy you a supercharger kit...

... but even with a blower Aussie V8 Falcons didn't seem to make the kind of power that people were getting out of LS engines. Or matching what Americans were doing with quad-cam SBF combos. It wasn't helped that the aftermarket for these overhead cam Ford V8s was tiny compared to what was available for traditional pushrod Ford V8s, or the dreaded LS. 

The good news is the revised BA interior (thank you Marcus Hotblack) was streets ahead of the old AU nightmare, and there were vastly improved heater and audio controls in a swish electronic display. It felt like a modern car compared to the Commodore's cheaper, 90s-style switches and all-green-8-bit display.  

The Control Blade IRS was also streets ahead of the antiquated Opel-derived junk found under the Commodore, but its sheer bulk helped make the BA heavy and led to quite pondrous handling. The wishbone front-end design in the BA-FG is great compared to the VT-VZ Commodore, but terribly blunted as an overall package and it feels too heavy. 

At least it could still do skids, though. 

Gearboxes weren't the Falcon's strong suit either. Sure, the BTR 4-speed auto gets a lot of heat today for being weak, but these people have obviously never lived with an auto V8 Commodore of the time. A standard LS1 Commodore driven enthusiastically will kill the stock 4L60E transmission - I know this because I've done it, even with a rebuilt gearbox. 

The BA Fords were hobbled with the ordinary-feeling T5 5-speed manual compared to the Commodore's beefcake T56 6-speed, but later models scored their own T56 6-speed manual (or ZF 6-speed auto) making these models the pick of the bunch.

But the biggest problem the BA XR8 had, was friendly fire. Y'see, if you wanted a big, fast Aussie-made four-door family car at the start of the New Millennium, the best option was the BA Falcon XR6 Turbo. 

The steering and handling was better as the front-end was much lighter, the engine loved to rev but still had bulk torque down low. You only needed to look at a Barra a bit saucily and the things would start making more power - 240kW Barra 6s were famously faster than even the mighty 290kW V8 GTs of the day.

Working on car magazines at the time, I've road-tested all these cars back then and I've personally owned 5 VX-VZ SS/SV8/HSV Commodores. In stock standard trim, the XR6 Turbo (and FPV F6) was better than all of them. Once they're modified, however, that becomes a much tougher battle.

For the FG-X, the final run of Aussie Falcons, Ford finally corrected their error and threw a stove-hot supercharged 5.0-litre based off the Mustang's Coyote V8 (but tagged Miami in the Falcons). These engines are absolute screamers with amazing upgrade potential... but it was all too little too late, unfortunately. 

Ford closed off the Falcon production line in 2017, which ended 57 years of Falcon heritage in Australia. Sales of the big four-door sedans, utes and wagons had plummeted since the 90s, and Ford USA couldn't justify keeping the big rear-drive Aussie around any longer.