The Ford vs. GM war continues to rage in a theater of Kangaroo meat and toilets that flush counter-clockwise. In order to give Holden (aka GM) a kick in the Down Under, Ford Australia recently dropped a load of forced induction all over its delectable Falcon GT. Unfortunately there are no cosmetic updates because all the money was spent on the engine. Rock and roll.
Ford Performance Vehicles, owned by Ford Australia and Prodrive, fell over itself to find a suitably-powered replacement for its retiring 5.4-liter.
After musing about the possibilities of twin-turbos, they decided to add a supercharger to the 5.0 instead; with it come improved cooling/fuel delivery, an active exhaust, and all the other tidbits necessary to make the car production-ready without grenading itself all over the asphalt.
The lighter, imported 5.0-liter V8 now puts down a nasty 335 kW / 449 hp and 570 Nm / 420 lb-ft, 10 kW / 13 hp more than anything HSV (Holden Specialty Vehicles) has on tap.
In a show of pure honesty, FPV says its base Falcon GS models will come with a differently-tuned mill putting down a mere 315 kW / 422 hp and 550 Nm / 406 lb-ft, less than HSV's vehicles. Speaking of honesty, read how Australian execs talk shop about their product and then try not to move south of the equator:
Bryan Mears, Prodrive managing director says: "When we looked at the Coyote as a straight fit into the engine bay it ticked a lot of boxes, but after a lot of deliberation we came to the conclusion that that engine [with no boost] in an 1800kg body was not going to tick the box of meeting FPV customers' performance expectations...The decision to supercharge the engine to give us the output we want is absolutely appropriate and correct for the way we see the company going forward with the product offerings we will have in the future.''
Bernie Quinn, FPV powertrain chief, said: "One thing we didn't want was to invest all that money and have sand kicked in our face by the opposition in any way, shape or form...So we went down the route of looking at forced induction for that engine...Typically you don't get the intake noise, that V8 sound quality, from a supercharged engine. So we knew that in order to make it sound like a V8 we'd have to do something very special. So we convinced the FPV board to spend a significant amount of money on tooling up and paying for an active exhaust system. So it's quiet when you need it to be quiet and it's loud every other time.'
Leave it to the Australians to tell it straight without any BS in the way (although mum's the word regarding speed/acceleration numbers). Whether it's because of the Road Warrior or something much crazier and deeper-rooted (also possibly Mel Gibson), Australian performance cars have been hauling ass for a long time and don't appear to be making any attempt to slow down.
It doesn't matter if it's turbocharged inline-sixes or supercharged V8s; we all now know where to go when the CAFE and the CARB and the hybrids and the hydrogens just get to be too constricting and the urge to melt rubber and destroy our grandchildren's environment gets too strong. Oz, here I come.
P.S. The 6-speed equipped models spend 13.6 L / 100 km (17.3 mpg), while automatics burn 13.7 L / 100 km (17.2 mpg). But really, who cares?
By Phil Alex
Via: Drive
Continuing with the rest of Ford's debuts, the 305HP Focus RS will be offered in the country in a limited number of 315 units, while the new Fiesta four-door sedan will be available in both diesel and petrol versions.
