The
Ford XA
Falcon was in production from 1972 to 1973, and was the first
Australian Falcon that was engineered specifically for an
Australian market, Ford having made the decision to drop the Falcon from their
U.S. line up in 1968, finally ending production in 1970.
Ford's Australian subsidiery was deemed to small to design and construct the car on it's own, so Australian designers and executives flew to the U.S. to work with the
American
Dearborn designers. Initially, a car adapted from Ford's
Torino/
Fairline model (ie. same design, with a smaller
wheelbase and shorter front and rear
overhangs) was suggested by the
Americans, but the Australian designers felt that this would not work well, and came up with a new design.* In October 1968 the Australian designers had finished work on the car - the success of which granted
Ford Australia to build itself a
design centre.
The car was available in
sedan,
coupe,
station wagon,
panel van and
ute models, all of them having three different styles (except (I think) for the station wagon, which was unavailable as a GT); the
Falcon 500 (around $3,500 AUS), the
Fairmont (around $4,000), and the
GT (Around $5,000). Engines ranged from a
six cylinder 250
ci to the
V8 302ci
Cleveland amd the V8 351ci Cleveland (yum). Nowadays, you should be able to find an XA in decent condition for about $2,000 - $3,000 in Australia, and there are many
internet sites who can import to the rest of the world. Transmissions were
C4 automatics,
FMX automatics or a four speed
manual transmission. A nine inch differential was pretty much standard on all models.
The XA was used in Australia by the
police and by various taxi firms. Both have continued to use Fords as fleet cars. An XA Sedan appeared in the movie
Mad Max as
March Hare; one of the yellow interceptors. See
Cars in Mad Max.
*Although the XA
does look similiar to the Torino, it is a totally different design.