Falcon fan yearns for the glory days

FOR one saddened aficionado, excitement has given way to predictability.

Stuart Hansen

STUART Hansen didn't have a driver's licence when his love affair with Ford began.

At 16, he became the proud owner of a 1968 Ford Falcon station wagon and just a year later, with the purchase of the 1972 Falcon GT, he was hooked.

"You were king -- it was a wonderful feeling," he said.

Now 50, Mr Hansen can pinpoint the demise of the Falcon's glory days, which he said had dimmed by the late 1980s when the imagination and excitement that had attracted a cult following was replaced with "boring and uninspiring" cars.

He said Ford's move away from motor racing and a failure to capture the next generation of car buyers lost the Falcon its status as a trendy car.

Well-styled and gadget-loaded German and Japanese cars had filled the vacuum and contributed to the dominance of foreign cars in the Australian market.

"When Ford moved away from the V8, they became quite a boring car company in Australia because they didn't replace it with anything exciting, which, to a certain extent lost them a generation of buyers," he said.

"They're still great, reliable cars, which is probably why most taxis are Falcons, but there's nothing exciting about driving a taxi."

Mr Hansen, president of the Falcon GT owners club, said although it was good to see Ford's small cars and utilities doing well globally, with a solid share of the Asian and American markets, prospects for the humble Australian-made Falcon were grim.

But he said whilever the dollar's value was high, the government had no choice other than to continue subsidising the car industry to ensure Australia maintained a diverse economy.

"I think the parent companies should be investing more into Australia, but we also need

to subsidise the car industry because the alternative is we lose manufacturing in Australia," he said. "The mining boom will stop and we'll have nothing to soften the blow."

These days, Mr Hansen finds as much enjoyment in restoring old Fords -- one of his projects at present is a 65 Falcon XP -- as he does in driving them.

"Ford is still producing some wonderful cars throughout the world, but I don't think they have the same brand loyalty anymore," he said.

"I think we'll be disappointed and sad when they replace the Falcon, but I guess it depends what they replace it with.

"The thing is, they have all the ingredients for a great car.

"There's no reason they can't recapture the same excitement they had all those years ago," Mr Hansen said.