Retro Stories by David Burrell
The ZA Ford Fairlane was released in March 1967 and created the market segment, and the template, for locally built, long wheelbase luxury cars that endured until 2017, when the last Holden Statesman was built.
How Ford Australia developed the ZA Fairlane is one of those great stories which showcase Australia’s automotive inventiveness.
To get the inside story, I spoke to David M. Ford, (no relation) who was Ford Australia’s Chief Engineer and spent his early career in the product planning department. He recalled the initial ideas for a locally built long wheel base luxury sedan.
“The Product Planning Manager, John Murray, had identified through market research that there was reasonable confidence of the existence of a profitable market for a biggish, premium priced luxury car, but not so big and not as expensive as the Galaxie. We had a plan for an XR-L as we called it. This was a long wheelbase XR Falcon, hence the ‘L’. The XR-L featured unique rear-end sheet metal and horizontal dual headlights. Cost minimisation was essential because of Australia’s smaller market size, so that influenced what we could do.”
The project had not got off the ground because of the costs. David continues the story:
“The thing about the XR-L was that the cost of investing in the tooling for the unique sheet metal was a major risk at the time, as the achievable sales volume had yet to be proved. We also looked at importing the US Fairlane but that was also too expensive with exchange rates, local content rules and the need to use as much of the local XR Falcon platform as possible to spread costs.”
Then David had an idea. Grabbing a bundle of brochures of the newly released XR Falcon, US Fairlane and XR-L photos he took a pair of scissors and started to cut everything up. To a Fairmont centre section, he added the XR-L twin headlights and grille. US Fairlane rear fenders were pasted over the back of the Fairmont’s photo. The result looked good so he had the company photographer, Nick Smales, take some photos of what he’d pasted together and blow them up into a two by three metre images. He then walked into a product planning meeting and put the photo on the wall and said:
“Let’s call it a Fairlane.”
The existing Falcon wheelbase was stretched to 116 inches/2946mm and the floor reshaped to allow the rear seat to be moved backwards, creating extra rear leg room. The American Fairlane’s rear fenders were found to blend seamlessly. And so, the Australian long wheel base luxury sedan category was created, one that would endure for another half a century.
The ZA range comprised just two models: the V8 powered 500 and the no frills six-cylinder Custom. With its disc brakes, Fairmont interior and Lincoln-esque dashboard the 500 shouted out its prestige. The Custom was pitched to the hire car crowd or those wanting a big car with a basic Falcon interior.
GMH and Chrysler Australia were comprehensively outplayed by Ford with the ZA. It was a case of the second-place company in the market leading the market. GMH took four years to offer a long wheelbase Fairlane competitor, the HQ Statesman. Chrysler Australia tried with their 1969 VF/1970 VG VIP and 1971 CH Chrysler by Chrysler models, but did not really dent Ford’s sales.
Not content with the Fairlane, David Ford and his product planners had another idea in the pipeline: the LTD. It is another fascinating design to driveway story.
