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Originally Posted by My poor XF
There won't be many present buyers of this car that have heard of the starfire commodore let alone experienced it. Id never heard if it till I jumped on here.
It's a bit rich to drag up a competitors vehicle from 30 yrs ago as a comparison.
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Unfortunately, many buyers of this car
will have at least heard of the Starfire Four Commodore...I'm surprised you haven't. It was a horror story that cost Holden a lot of money. We owned one, a VC SL sedan...2 liter Starfire Four (Holden red motor with two cylinders whacked off), and the Traumatic auto. It was a roomy, comfortable car, with good road manners and handling, and was quiet on the road...but
sloooow. It could easily be outrun by a two liter Cortina, with only 60kw, and weighed a bit over the 1300kg mark. They were available with air con, ours didn't have it, but given the way old air cons could be felt to sap engine power when they kicked in, especially on a four, I often wondered how slow a Commodore Four with air con would be. You could honestly call it a "car whose time
hadn't come"...it was an admirable idea as a concept, but four cylinders of the day were only down around the 50 to 70kw area of power...nowadays that would be seen as pitiful, back then it was normal. Today we have cars like the coming FT86 from Toyota that puts out 147kw or 200hp from an NA motor, and people complain it "lacks power". Times have certainly changed.
I'm only 46 years old, and would be "one of the potential buyers" of the Ecoboost Falcon...anyone of my age or maybe even younger would know of the Commodore Four, and couldn't help but have it in the back of thier minds when test driving the Falcon with the four.
It's similar to the Holden dealer we visited when looking a new cars, who, when I brought up the small V6, asked if we'd driven the 3 liter V6. I said I had, as rental cars where I worked, and was pleasantly surprised with the power. He said that if people didn't actually ask about the engine size, he would sometimes chuck them the keys and say take it for a drive and let me know what you think, and they would usually be surprised when he said it was "only" a 3 liter, which changed thier idea about how "big" a motor really has to be nowadays.
Ford should adopt this with people as well...they're doing it somewhat by not actually calling it a Falcon Four, or putting the capacity on it anywhere.
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That is in part due to product rationalisation and the also fact the six-cylinder can't meet the Euro V emissions standards that will come in to force from 2016.
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This is simply facing reality...Holden came across it when the venerable red motor died and had to be replaced with the Nissan six, as it would have cost too much to re-engineer an old engine to meet new standards...in that case unleaded fuel. I've got a feeling of deja-vu when I see the current wailing and nashing of teeth about the possible demise of the Ford straight six, pretty much the same that went on when Holden axed the old red motor.
The Falcon straight six has had it's day...it's a good motor, but how much longer do you pour money into an old design when there are plenty more efficient, powerful, and compact configurations out there that already easily meet all coming Euro emissions requirements?