End of the road for Ford Fairlane
By Tim Dornin
May 11, 2007 03:39pm
Article from: AAPFont size: + -
FORTY years is a long stretch for any car badge but the times have finally caught up with the long-wheelbase Ford Fairlane.
With sales falling over the past few years, the company said local production of its long wheelbase vehicle was no longer viable.
The decision also kills off the upmarket LTD, although buyers had just about done that themselves this year with just nine retailed in the four months to the end of April.
It also indicates the continued pressure from imports and high petrol prices on the local car manufacturing industry which builds mostly large six and eight cylinder models.
Ford Australia president Tom Gorman said it was a tough decision to axe a car that had been part of the local motoring scene since 1967.
The first locally-built Fairlane was introduced that year while the LTD was launched in 1973.
"A significant decline in sales of vehicles in the upper large segment over the past few years has meant that local production of long wheelbase variants, primarily for domestic sale only, is currently no longer sustainable," Mr Gorman said.
"The emotion of this decision has been very difficult. Sometimes the hard decision and the right decision are the same one.
"The Fairlane nameplate has been a mainstay of the Ford line-up since 1967 when Ford introduced the first locally produced luxury car with the ZA Fairlane, creating a whole new market segment in the process."
Ford expects the last Fairlane and LTD cars to be built in early 2008, ahead of next year's introduction of an all new Falcon.
The Fairlane name was debuted by Ford in America in 1955, apparently inspired by Henry Ford's Fair Lane house and grounds near Ford's head office in Michigan.
The first car to carry the name in Australia arrived as an import in 1959 as a replacement for the Customline.
The cars were shipped from the US but partially assembled in Australia, with the last US-produced Fairlane launched in 1964.
In 1967 the car became Australian made with a design that essentially stretched the Falcon platform.
For many years the Fairlane and LTD went head-to-head with Holden's Statesman and Caprice models in the local market.
However, Holden has enjoyed the upper hand in recent times, particularly with the Caprice, which has retailed 780 vehicles so far this year.
Holden also enjoys the economy of scale advantages by exporting versions of its long wheelbase cars to markets like the Middle East and Korea.
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