» Get the best price on a new Ford Ford has confirmed it will stay in the 'work' wagon market with the arrival of the new-generation Falcon.
Ford Australia president, Tom Gorman, confirmed his company's decision this week. Asked at his last media briefing for 2007 whether the Falcon wagon would survive after the arrival of the new Orion range, he surprised most observers by confirming the company would stay in the wagon market.
"Our plan is to continue to sell Falcons and we're evaluating what the future looks like for us."
"When we launched Territory in 2004 a lot of people thought that would substitute heavily for Falcon wagon and it just didn't work out that way."
"As we've understood that customer, 99.9 per cent of the sales are fleet sales and it is very much a tool of trade product. So it is about cost of ownership; it heavily skews towards E-Gas; so that market is still a very good market for us. We plan to remain competitive there for some time."
The Ford boss' position during a later CarSales Network interview was unequivocal.
"We intend to stay in the market," Gorman said.
But the Ford boss has stopped short on offering any details on the 'new' wagon. Added to the fact that no wagon prototypes, nor tooling, nor pilot build components for a new hauler have yet been spotted, speculation is now mounting as to just what form the 'Orion' wagon will take.
Given the fleet focus of the vehicle, could it be that Ford is planning to carry over the existing wagon with little more than a front-end makeover and updated Euro IV compliant inline six?
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