Quote:
Originally Posted by jphanna
it has been suggested that when the AU was being conceived......Ford Aust was on the back of an unprecedented 15 years at the top....or near the top of the aussie sales charts and financially at their peak in local history.
forgetting the styling, that as we know was not accepted......the engineering that went into the AU, is the reason why TODAY......it is renowned as one of the toughest aussie cars ever built. even the Holden faithful, admit the AU is bullet proof for strength.
no one can take that away from its history.
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It's funny, I've been going back and forth between FG, SY, ED and XW and I reckon the 15 years at the top somewhat rests on the design of XD-E-F and EA-B-D-F-L - a big wide low car with acres of room in the dash, and simple. It sold and sold and sold, keeping top spot while Holden caught up in the width and size (modeling VT on EB in core dimensions?) You would keep doing ball joints but the simplicity of the rear end meant not too much expensive total rebuilding, like with our
IRS. So they were no-brainer long term ownership propositions. They had cool features like front bench seats to use all that width practically.
Engineers kept gradually improving E Series (eg head gasket) resulting in the AU. Tickford added bespoke suspension tunes and hotter motors to customise very fine drivers cars out of a family sedan. But with AU design jumped the shark, as the company decided what their target market would have. As much as I love the AU, it's a little more enclosed and claustrophobic up front (bangs head) compared to ED which is wide, and spacey and what Australians liked. Imagine if they had continued the Falcon design strengths with the robustness?
Now I don't have an AU (I am AU-less) but even having had them in the family, getting into the E series recently blew me away at how much space it had, how wide, how good vision. No wonder they sold.