New BF Falcon brings major improvements

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I don’t know about you but I have this feeling that, no matter how high the price of fuel goes, or how short the world supply becomes, we big car lovers are going to keep on paying the price right to the bitter end. It’s just the way we are and what we have in our petrol heads. It seems to have little to do with our own physical size. 

To us “big is beautiful”, and I suspect car manufacturers understand this only too well.Why else would they keep on improving the Falcons and others of this world, leave alone keep producing completely new big machines? So, let’s just take a little look at the truly magnificent range of new BF Falcons Ford let me hoon around what seemed like half of Australia a couple weeks back. 

We even got to the legendary Pub with No Beer made famous by that great Aussie Slim Dusty. Boy, Slim would have been proud of this piece of Australian motoring brilliance — and I do mean that! As Ford managing director Richard Matheson said over the huge outback lunch at the famous pub: 

“We are delivering on the key wants of customers with the new Falcon range — economy, performance, refinement and safety.” There are many good things about the new BF but, for me, undoubtedly the very best is the astonishingly smooth new six-speed automatic transmission which, among other things, helps produce fuel savings of up to 11%. 

An auto saving fuel? Sound strange? Well, it does it by having a computer that learns very quickly how you drive and changes gear at what really is the optimum point — only better and quicker than you and I can do it. 

However, it’s not that which really impressed me. For example, it was things like not changing gear half way through a corner (just when you wouldn’t do it but an older auto would). There are lots of little touches like this that an experienced driver can appreciate and which a not so experienced driver might find saves his or her skin at tricky moments. 

This is truly a great gearbox. The reworked Barra 190 4.0 litre six cylinder engine offers significant increases in fuel economy, power and torque, and there’s a 5.4 litre V8 230kW, 500NM motor available too, complete with a superb Performance Brake Package. 

The BF is quieter and even more refined than its predecessor, yet it still keeps that wonderful V8 note we all love so much. Traction control is now standard on all the petrol models and, for the first time, on the XR Utes. 

So much that’s new, so little space, but we must mention the prices which range from $44,790 to $87,900 for the LTD. 

For my money the XR6 sedan at $50,990 takes the prize and, of course, there’s the full range of utes from $42,990.

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