Would you pay $48,000 for a bog-standard 1979 Ford Falcon?

Friday, 17 August 2018

The television commercial for the launch of the XD Ford Falcon says it all, really.

The Ford Falcon XD has finally taken its place as a classic. Sorry if that hurts - any true 80s Falcon fan knows that the XD was already a classic from the moment it appeared in 1979.

But it is worth it, because a 1981 XD has just sold at auction in Australia for AU$44,000 (NZ$48,500), signalling that maybe, just maybe, more people are starting to recognise the true beauty of a car designed using a ruler by someone called Wayne (yes, really).

Even though it is still well short of the stratospheric six-figure money commanded by the seventies Aussie performance icons, $45k for an ordinary mass-market sedan built in 1979 is a pretty impressive amount of money, and it was for an absolute base model XD Falcon as well.

Stylish steel wheels? Check. After market driving lights? Check. Large V8 that produces very little power? Check. This XD Falcon ticks all the boxes.

Well, sort of.

**READ MORE

149kW was your lot from the Ford's 5.8-litre V8 in 1979. That's way less than a 4-cylinder Mustang today...

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The XD Falcon may have looked like a Granada, but the two cars only shared headlights.

* Why Ford is killing off the four-door sedan**

The XD that just sold at the Shannons Sydney Winter Classic auction was absolute base spec in terms of equipment, but it had one important addition - a 'Police Pack'.

All the classic 1980s design touches here and not a cupholder in sight. Well worth $45k.

Basically, the Police Pack was an option to jam the biggest, most powerful engine in the entry-level car, mainly intended for police purchase (obviously, hence the name) but it was also available for the public to purchase, although they rarely did.

This particular XD was one such example, however, which rather obviously inflated its price.

The Police Pack was available on the base GL and jammed the 351cid (5.8-litre) V8 under the bonnet, hooked up to a either a three-speed auto or, in this particular car's case, a four-speed manual transmission.

Disc brakes all round came standard with the most powerful V8, which pumped out a thoroughly enormous (for the time, of course) 149kW of power, roughly the same as the current biggest-selling Ford, the diesel Ranger ute. Or 75kW less than the current four-cylinder EcoBoost Mustang. I'll let that sink in for a bit.

The XD has a particularly proud place in the Falcon's history, kicking off the fourth generation (that included the XE, XF and the loooong running XG and XH utes that lasted until 1999) of the Aussie icon that was the last time that the Falcon comprehensively outsold the Holden Commodore, as by around 1989 the Commodore found its footing (no doubt helped by the then-new EA Falcon's crappy build quality) and it was neck-and-neck throughout the 90s, but by 1998 (and the dawn of the 'challengingly' styled AU Falcon) it was pretty much all in the Holden's favour.

When the XD came out in 1979, it was a car that was almost too late, but turned out to have arrived just in time.

Holden had gone completely revolutionary with the smaller Opel-based Commodore, creating outrage in the process (sound familiar?), but Ford stayed true to the big Aussie sedan formula with the XD, creating a car that, while still large, was actually smaller than the XC Falcon on the outside, but featured more interior space and a cutting edge (literally lots of magnificent edges) design that echoed the handsome European Ford Granada.

The XD was also the car the made Dick Johnson a legend at Bathurst, being the car he famously hit a rock with during the 1980 race, as well as the legendary Tru-Blu car that he won both the Bathurst race and his first Australian Touring Car championship in the following year.

With the sale it would seem that the XD's legend is starting to be truly appreciated.

$48K for an XD Falcon? Tell him he's dreamin'. Not anymore Darryl, not anymore.