1967-72 Fairlane: Ford Australia's Fresh Face of Luxury

摘要

The really clever part of marketing is spotting the unoccupied and, hopefully, profitable niche and seizing it before competitors do. Few automakers were more successful at this than Ford Motor Company was in the Sixties. In America, Ford single-handedly started what became the "pony-car" stampede with the Falcon-based Mustang. General Motors and Chrysler contended with their Camaro/Firebird twins and Barracuda, respectively, but weren't anything like as successful. Across the Pacific at around the same time, the Ford Motor Company of Australia pulled off a similarly spectacular marketing coup. It was not of the same gigantic proportions as the Mustang, but in its own way it was just as significant. The event was the release of the ZA Fairlane, a long-wheelbase luxury sedan based on the ubiquitous Falcon. Ford was doing it tough in the Australian market following the debacle of the XK Falcon in 1960. Viewed at the time as the company's champion in its quest to challenge GM-Holden on equal terms, the XK bombed badly. It was tarnished with a reputation for fragility and unreliability despite a supposedly rigorous development program.