(first posted 8/31/2013) Bryce, our intrepid man in New Zealand, has uploaded a raft of shots at the CC Cohort. So many to chose from, so little time… But this Falcon XP wagon caught my eye, as Australian Falcons usually do, with their parallel universe styling. Looks more like an early Comet. But what’s really different is at the other end:
Now that may look like an American Falcon’s tail feathers, but it’s different in every detail, as well as the way the tail lights are located and integrated. Well, more than that even; the Australian Falcon wagon had a shorter rear overhang, as there was concern about it getting hung up on the rough outback roads.
Here’s a profile shot of an XP wagon (top), along with an American ’62 Falcon wagon. The difference isn’t huge, but quite apparent enough. The Australian Falcon also has a higher ride height, thanks to the beefing up of its suspension starting in 1962, when it got the heavier suspension components from the American Fairlane. Don’t even get Bryce started about the original Falcon’s underpinnings…rubbish! BTW, the XP was built during 1965 and 1966.
Bryce, so what engine does this XP wagon have? I see what looks like a V8 emblem on its front fender, but the XP didn’t come with the V8 yet, right?
Damn that badge didnt come out well it says 170 pursuit same as the XP Fairmont I had, This was the first successful Aussie Falcon They thrashed a team of them around Youyangs proving ground setting records left and right one car rolled over but still completed the event,We didnt see the V8 untill the XR of 66
Re the overhang, in OZ especially NSW reverse angle parking is rife the shortened overhang and right side exhaust exits appear to be designed to aid in that maybe NZ had the Falcon also imported from Canada with 4 stud wheels and US body though I have never spotted the difference in rear quarters.
This car white with red interior is identical to one a friend owned in the late 70s I asked the owner if it had certain names on the registration? No he is the third owner,
This and the blown V8 Falcon and the MK3 were to show the Fords Kiwis did like rather than the taurus I showed being removed from opposite my house. Churr Paul,
I believe the US Falcon and Comet had their tail pipe on the right hand side too since that was the side the 6 cyl exhaust manifold was on.
I like this a lot,I love the afterburner taillights on Fords.Thanks Bryce and Paul.
Chech the cohort Gem I shot a Zephyr at the same location.
Thanks Bryce
Now you have me intrigued where my parts car is shot was a 63 Falcon I know where it went, a local Ford fancier grabbed it I know roughly where it is I might have to measure it
I believe that the reason that the front end looks so much like a Comet is because those are indeed the Comet front fenders and hood. It would make sense, since they went out of US/Canada production after the 1963 MY and the XP started in early 1965. That provided a way for them to update the front end to justify calling it a “new” model and giving it a new model designation, for really cheap. It was particularly common back then to ship tooling overseas once it had run its course in NA.
Note the US Falcon and Comet got those beefier Fairlane parts too, as it cut down the number of parts they needed to stock so it was cheaper. More volume to spread the fixed costs over and less inventory to stock.
You could be right we got the Compact fairlane but not the Comet so no duplication of panels on different models.
The exhausts on all OZ wagons exited right hand side no matter the engine configuration tall curbs in the bush towns meant bumpers often hit the curb but not the tailpipe
The front bumper also looks like a Comet version. Those taillamps remind me of a ’63 full sized Ford.
No the bumper is different from the 63 Comet at least see the photo posted below.
Approach angles on were always a bit of an issue for American sourced cars in Oz at this time. These sorts of cars were used a lot on rural “roads” where many four wheel drivers would hesitate today and in creek bed crossings there was always the danger of losing a rear bumper. So Ford and Holden had pretty strict ideas on rear end design.
Falcons could also be ordered with a Country Pack option that raised the suspension a couple of inches for better clearance too.
I think it was only with the current series Falcon that the rear approach angle was felt to be no longer an issue, giving stylists a bit more freedom.
As an aside we got Plymouth Furys badged as Dodge Phoenix about this era and I have heard that this was because the Fury shell had shorter rear overhangs, making them more suitable for use in the bush!
Yes even Hillmans in OZ used Canadian spec uprights and 15inch wheels for extra ground clearance my friend exported Minx5 stubaxles to Canada to solve that problem for someone, american cars were designed for smooth roads which did them no favours in Aussie or NZ of the 60s where paved highways didnt always exist.
nice shots. I like the placement of the mirror on the door. On the shot of the back, I see it was a drop down tailgate with a manual rear window. Does the hand crank fold up to hide the lock or does it hang down like that at all times?
The Falcon wagon’s tailgate window crank did not fold up, whereas the Holden, which introduced a wind down rear window with the 1965 HD model, did fold up. IIRC, the Valiant wagon’s crank was like the Falcons.
The Holden folding handle would usually break making the window hard to wind especially once the tracks were filled with dust.
Yep, remember a lot of those broke. Nice idea in theory, just didn’t spec tough enough metal – unusually for Holden.
Great find. I like the tail lights but that front end is nasty in my opinion. I love Comets and don’ t see any Comet in this front end. Different strokes!
Sure looks like the 1963 Comet fenders and hood to me. There might be a little tweaking of the front of the fenders where the grille mounts though but if there is it is minor.
I have seen a few other cases, on the full size Fords, where the AU version soldered on for a few more years after the same US model had been replaced and they wear Canadian Meteor front details to give it a fresh look.
Nice to see a Comet that’s not made into a drag racing special.I love them,all the glamour and style of an American car and none of the bulk and thirst
I looked at that Eric, apart from the altered curve at headlight level they look the same to me. Tooling would have been shipped and altered as neccessary. I quite like the Comet shame we didnt get any Ive ever seen.
I’m not so sure that there is an alteration to the sides of the fender, I think the Comet one looks like it has more curve due to the side spear extension off of the grille. I was thinking it was the area behind the grill that may have been modified. Either way it certainly would be quicker and cheaper to ship the tooling over and make some minor modifications than all new tooling. The Aussies got a new look and Ford got to amortize the less used Comet pieces over a few more stampings.
Yep they did their own grille to fit in with the current US grille styles, which included a couple of chrome bars to fill the gap from the top of the grille to the hood – although on this example they are slightly bent and lower than the proper position.
The 1960 Falcons in Australia were a nightmare that almost made Ford regret their decision to introduce them. The roads here were (and many still are) very rough and full of holes. The suspension of the 1960 Falcon was nowhere near strong enough and many cars suffered smashed balljoints, snapped tie rods, bent rims, broken stub axles and punched sills.
The 1964 models were much, much better and Ford were so confident of their improved cars, they sponsored a huge reliability trial under horrendous road conditions – and proved to Aussies that Falcons are tough!
Yes Ford OZ submitted plans for a revamped MK2 Zephyr Ford UK told them NO the Loline was already in the can and the MK3 already on the drawing board, Dearborn sold them the Falcon off the plan so to speak. Aussie buyers were devastated the ‘new’ Falcon was certainly no Zephyr replacement which had many rally finishes to its name, Kiwis kept the Zephyr as its favourite Ford until the Falcon became useable in 65 with this one, the rest is history. A MK3 at the same location belonging to another tech at the same garage.
Not quite Bryce, the plans were set to go into production with some stamping dies under construction when Charlie Smith went to Dearborn to see the final styling model – he didn’t like it “it won’t beat the Holden” so they showed him the Falcon in the next studio. Smith then sent a telegram back to Australia saying “cancel Zephyr”
I see a mint XP Falcon sedan quite often in Whakatane.
Actually, the reason the Australian Falcon wagon was shorter than the USA one was entirely pragmatic: it enabled Ford to use the same rear quarter panels for both (below the windows), thus reducing the number of panels they had to make. They used the same principle for the 2 door panel van: it was the ute lower half with the station wagon roof. The departure angle of the USA wagon was 12 degrees; for the Aussie wagon it was 16, so there was a small but worthwhile gain for navigating the rugged Outback roads! I have a copy of the old drawings showing this and the panel-sharing, will scan and upload them tomorrow.
The taillights started out in the lower USA position with the 1960 XK Falcon, and remained low with 1962’s XL. 1964’s XM brought the raised taillights but retained the XK front panels. In 1965 the XP arrived, retaining the XM’s raised taillights but ditching the XK front end for the new design. And having seen Eric’s photo above, I completely agree that the XP used the Comet fenders and hood. I wouldn’t have believed it unless I’d seen it lol!
Had a feeling you’d be along to help clear this up, Bloody Paul with his eagle eyes I;d never noticed and do have some experience with these, Look forward to the scans.
Here is a small version of the picture:
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/vv224/9triton/falcon-xk-sketch.jpg
A few years ago I partly pulled the rear bumper skin off my ute from it dragging on the ground, so it does happen! Even if it was on a 4×4 track in the mountains…
Right, here we go, this first scan is profile drawings dating from September 1958 of the four XK Falcon variants to be built in Australia. The image comes from the book “A History Of The Ford Motor Company In Australia And New Zealand” by Geoff Easdown and published in 1987 by Golden Press Pty Ltd. The shared lower rear guards are noted on the drawings – and the USA wagon’s length is also ghosted in.
And here also from the Geoff Easdown book, is the second image, from February 1960, showing more of the commonality. Edit: this is scanned from my book, but is the same image John H links to above.
Ah! Ford AU was always good at that sort of engineering for minimal tooling.
Such as sharing the bed of the ute from 1972-1999, or the inner structure of the wagon from 1988-2010, almost unchanged across all those years.
Note the first drawing above also shows the length of the ‘tudor’ door opening on the wagon image.
Good point. And not to forget the panelvan upper sides, roof and rear doors (both barn and horizontally split). I reckon the reason they had the quarter window behind the XD-XH van front doors was to allow the rear structure to continue unchanged (except for the taillights). Great way of making $ and parts go further.
I think that was the change from the coupe doors on the XA-XC utes (with their own glass), it was better to have that window behind a shorter sedan door than a very thick pillar to cover the distance to the rear wall of the cab. Too bad on the later AU-BF utes the B-pillar was so thick that it obstructed any view through the window.
A side note – in the early 90s with the rise of the Japanese car industry Ford were looking at dropping the ute in the face of imported pickups, I’m not sure if this took place before or after Holden brought back their ute (they didn’t build a ute between 1984-1990). The XF ute was carried over alongside the new-generation EA Falcon, you could still get it with a 3sp column shift manual and carburettor engine (5sp & EFI were optional). A group of engineers worked unofficially after hours to transplant the new OHC engine into the ute, management liked the result and a couple of years later there was the XG model. Another couple of years and they transplanted the entire front end of the sedan forward of the firewall (with differences where required to make it meet up). This ran until 1999 when the new AU ute debuted, or should I say pickup as it was now a cab-chassis construction and not a proper “coupe utility” as originated in 1932. I think I will stop now rather than get in any deeper to ute history!
Glad I’m not the only one who enjoys the history of the Aussie ute! I remember when I saw my first brand new XH ute in town in 1996ish, I felt such a sense of pride that Ford had done the update! I didn’t know it had come so close to being dropped. I’m sure glad for those after-hours engineers! I’ve mentioned before, but we’ve had an XB GS V8 panel van in the family since 1980. It was destroyed by shed fire a year ago but my sister and BIL haven’t had the heart to get rid of the shell yet. They’ve now replaced it with an XD ute, a probably rare factory V8 still wearing its factory orange paintwork and the S Pack stripes. Shame the ute’s going to die with the Falcon (and I’ll stop there before I get mad lol!)
John, I hope you spotted that the first image I uploaded has the father-of-the-coupe-ute Lew Bandt’s name at the bottom of it. I’m assuming he and the other person named did the designs.
Given Lew Bandt did the 1932 ute as a young designer he would have been one of the senior guys when the Falcon was on the cards. Although the car was designed in the USA, there was a reasonable degree of “just sort out the details” to put things into local production, particularly when dealing with model changes.
From my YouTube channel, here’s a doco on the development of the XK Falcon (including wagon design):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-q45n19XLM
And an original TV commercial for the XL wagon:
Looking at old episodes of TV show 77 Sunset Strip they’re always driving around in butt dragging T-Birds that would never make it across the hump at the end of my city driveway…
Australia was a very different place back in the sixties. Very few freeways; I’m tempted to say none but NSW may have had some. Once you got out of the cities you’d have a two lane sealed road at best, with no bypasses around town centres. And that was only the main highways. Many country roads had a single lane of bitumen down the centre; if you met an oncoming car you’d both put two wheels on the gravel shoulder to pass. Many had totally unsealed stretches. A much larger proportion of our population lived in rural areas then. Although we lived in the state capital, we would often visit family and friends who lived on gravel roads or just plain dirt tracks in the country. Steep hills and potholes were common.
Given that, you really needed a shortish rear overhang and decent ground clearance. Remember at this time Holden was sort of the ‘gold standard’ for a family car, so the Falcon had to be able to go where the Holden went, and take what the Holden did. Ford got the first part right from the start; it took them a few years to get the hang of the second.
Interesting to see the separate reversing lights. Were these an NZ-only fitment? In Australia the only XPs to get those were Fairmonts, and this is a regular Falcon Deluxe.
“A much larger proportion of our population lived in rural areas then”.
This has often been said, and has never been especially true.
In 2025, about 13.5% of Aussies live in the bush. In 1960, it was 18% (of a much smaller overall pop), and in ’65 when the XP arrived, 16.9%. Hell, it was only about 40% in the bush at Federation in 1901. We’ve long been a relatively urban lot, sustained by the mythology of the bush and outback.
Like America, small town Oz has largely evaporated as economics dictated (amongst many other factors) that farms got bigger, but unlike there, our small towns were tiny. I’m thinking all those Mallee towns, for example, bustling places in 1960, with trains, a bank, several churches, etc, but only perhaps 2500 folk at their peak. And that’s reflected in the above stats: lots of places, but not much actual population.
Still, it is correct that outside a city, the roads were as you describe. We still drove on heaps of unmade rural roads in my ’70’s childhood. And cars did need to be able to withstand at least a modicum of this.
I’ve long thought that the Frankenbrow-faced XP is the ugliest Falcon ever made, btw, the best of its type or no!
My understanding (as an American who spent some time digging into Australian statistical almanacs some years ago about this specific matter) is that the really significant point wasn’t so much the number of people living in rural areas as the rather modest state of the roads even in more built-up areas. It’s been ages since I looked at the statistics, but the figures on different road types in the early ’60s did support what Peter describes: a lot of “improved” roads (including gravel and the like), but very little concrete and sealed tarmacadam.
ETA: I dug out my notes, and according to Year Book Australia for 1960, as of 30 June 1960, there were 525,858 miles of general traffic road across the Commonwealth, of which only 54,213 miles were concrete or bitumen. About 64 percent were unimproved, with the other 25 percent listed as gravel or other “improved” surfaces. By 1973, the percentage of concrete/bitumen roads was up to 24.5 percent, but more than half of roads were still listed as “formed/cleared only,” lacking even gravel.
Ive driven around a lot of OZ dirt roads were common in the80s/90s in rural areas just dirt no gravel if its wet you cant go anywhere especially on the blacksoil. when its dry the corrugations will loosen teeth and the dust is amazing it gets in everywhere, its hard on cars.
Oh, yes, Aaron, and I did say Pete was correct about the roads (and I’ll bow to you on statistics, sir, having a unique ability to trip over anything mathematical and mistake it for a cat). For the size of the country, it was impossible for such population, wherever located, to pay for made roads. And it still is, in large swathes of outback Queensland or Western Australia: nobody could justify their sealing – even, sometimes, when profitable, exportable goodies to dig up (or pump out) are found in the area.
(As a by-the-by, we’ve only ever had concrete roads in a very few semi-inner-city ‘burbs of the ’30’s. No idea why that is).
Well, no one in the States wants to pay for made roads anymore either, so it’s all dirt and gravel in the end either way, I expect.
I had one of those XPs it looked ok for what it was and you couldnt see thru the panels like the EH I got rid of and in the rain water stayed out, and it was the fancy one a Fairmont with bucket seats and vinyl top, it ‘looked’ just fine and it ran.
Probably dealer installed accessory, these were cheap cars new a Zephyr cost more but it was a much more popular car, better appointed faster 4 speed box etc. the Kiwi Quid was worth more than the one in OZ so Aussie cars sold on price and when local assembly started and Ford UK built a lemon simultaneously Falcon sales took off.
The Argentine Falcon wagon had yet a different shape from either the American or Australian version, with flat rear-quarter glass that didn’t wrap around to the tailgate.
All of this is fascinating .
-Nate