Horse 1628 - We Want Four Letters

- No no no no no no no.

Shall I put that another way?
No no no no no no no no no no.

Dear Ford,
Why oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why?
Love Rollo.

It's pretty well much a given that the Ford FH Falcon will be the last one ever and that once the last of those leaves the factory, it will be the end of an era. However I really think that Ford could have gone out with a bang; out with a really fantastic swan song but have they chosen to? Not really.
Instead, Ford have decided to clothe the FH with the same design cues as the current Fiesta and the next Mondeo. It's all a little bit dull for my liking. The FH will be going out with a whimper instead of the massive multi-colour bang that it should have.

Apart from very minor changes in the platform to accept such things as independent suspension, as opposed to the live rear axle of the first XK Falcon in 1960, the platform is the same. Also, since the XY Falcon in 1970, the block has pretty well much remained the same; floating at about 4L.
With this in mind, I think that it would have made sense to tool up the factory for the very last run of Falcons to make something from their old playbook. To that end, they could have gone out, leaving us in awe.

What are the four most celebrated letters in Australian motoring history?

G T H O

No really. Although Holden had their A9X and even Ford's Cobra looked the part, nothing stirs the psyche as much as those letters. There are tales of these things changing hands for six-figure sums and one was bought in 2007 for $683,650.
I mean really. All that Ford should have needed to remind then of how they should have styled their last car is this:

- Story. End of.

I'm not suggesting that Ford should have styled the FH like the XY, no, I'm suggesting that Ford should have tooled up their factories to build XY body pressings and build their last Falcon inside them. It's not like it's a difficult task to engineer either.
The platform and drivetrain would be identical to the FG. Even things such as the interior could have been made to fit. The thing is though, it's not like Ford would have been violating copyright or trademarks either because Ford would have been building a Ford.
I bet that had this been announced, they would have pre-filled orders before even one of them reached the body pressing shop. They would have had a similar sort of response to what Holden had in 1998 when they showed off their Monaro concept. It would be massive.

Ford's problem is that they weren't shifting enough units to make the factory viable. I think that half of that is because they were producing uninspiring cars. Let the Yaris brigade buy their whitegoods for motor cars; let Falcon buyers have one just hurrah before the blue oval fades into obscurity.