The first Ford Falcon

In 1960 Ford became a fully-fledged local car manufacturer - just like rival Holden - with the XK Falcon model. Unfortunately, the first Falcon was a bit underdone when it came to durability.

Story: James Cockington

The first Australian Ford Falcon, known as the XK, started to roll off the new Broadmeadows assembly line in June 1960. The launch of the Falcon was big news at the time, even making the front cover of Pix, the magazine of choice for blokes waiting to have a haircut.

Despite the free publicity it wasn’t a great start for a car that would later become a legend.

“If you drove over a damn piece of paper the bloody thing would bottom,” recalled Max Grandsen, then a regional manager, later Ford’s national sales manager. He was one of the first to test-drive the new car at the St Ives Showground in Sydney and was appalled. So were most of the others expected to sell these things.

The cars had been set up with what was called ‘boulevarde ride’ suspension, designed for American freeway travel. But the bigger problem was that the Falcon was flimsy. Suspension components like ball joints weren't up to the job; pretty quickly the new Falcon earned a reputation for being unreliable.

Worse still, they were seriously underpowered.

“That 144 cubic inch engine was totally inadequate, particularly with an automatic transmission,” said Grandsen.

The XL Falcon which replaced the XK wasn’t much better but things started to improve when Ford released its 170 cubic inch Pursuit engine. Now they had a car that could challenge the dominant Holden range. Let the battle begin.