Well, considering I asked the question in the first place I might as well try and get an answer from Ford, so that is what I did.
I originally sent an email and was told to call 13FORD, which I did. Michael thought it was an unusual request but said he would get back to me in a couple of days, and true to his word he did.
The easiest part of the search was identifying the total number of Fairmont wagons - of course they have their own product code - 18262. So here are the total figure per series:
AU 2,239
AUII 1,721
AUIII 741
When it comes to extracting the number of V8s it getsa bit trickier:
AU 163
AUII - (unknown - can't be extracted from data available)
AUIII 44 built in 2002, unknown number in 2001.
Michael was able to tell me that for the AUIII (available Nov 2001 to Sept 02) 136 were built in 2001, leaving the remaining 605 built in 2002 of which 44 were V8s, that is 7.3% of this series Fairmont wagons are V8s.
If we look at the original AU we find that remarkably 7.3% of total production was V8s - just like AUIII V8s built in 2002.
So if we extrapolate (yes, I got a credit in business statistics at Uni
) the 7.3% to the AUII figure and add 7.3% of AUIII 2001 figures (an additional 10 units) we get the following:
AU V8 163
AUII V8 126
AUIII V8 54
Are these the rarest AU models? I think so.
And while I thought my original ride was rare:
- 2000 AUII Fairmont Wagon in Liquid Silver
Then the vehicle I just bought is even rarer"
- 2001 AUIII Fairmont V8 Wagon in Silhouette
I got the full drum on my V8 from Michael, but I will leave that for another post...