Next For Ford Australia: Falcon Sportwagon Spotted At TMR

Ford Australia's stay of execution for the I6 mill and the Geelong Engine Plant no doubt brought the odd tear of joy to Ford tragics. (Mike can't stop blubbering... the kid's collapsed, overwhelmed with happiness.)

So, perhaps there are winds of optimism blowing through Ford Australia. Maybe the Falcon, and life as we know it, is not about to come to an untimely end next year, or even the year after. Maybe Ford has plans for the Falcon. Is it possible it may yet become Australia's next 'car for the world'?

It needs then, as everyone knows, a half-decent wagon.

Now because Ford Australia doesn't have the faintest idea of what a half-decent wagon looks like, The Motor Report engaged 'wunderkind' industrial designer, Kirk Dyer, two-time winner of the VACC Target 2020 Design Competition, to put pen to paper and come up with a Falcon Sportwagon. (See, philanthropy isn't dead; that's not blood running through TMR's veins, it's the milk of human kindness.)

What you see there is the Falcon wagon Ford Australia should be producing. Combining elements of the handsome UK Mondeo wagon with the rising belt-line, rounded rump and tail-lights of the superbly penned FG sedan, Kirk's lowered, trimmed and stylishly balanced rendering gives us a taste of 'what might have been' for the FG wagon. It looks 'fat'; this is one Sportwagon anyone would love in the driveway.

So yes, it's true. Visitors to TMR Central can see the FG Falcon Sportwagon... sadly, it's only a framed graphic and - sadder yet - that's the only place they'll see it. Somehow, Ford Australia seems wedded to a wagon only an undertaker could love.

TMR's resident arbiter of good taste and decorousness, Steane, reckons, "the beautiful thing about this is it looks more horn than the real Holden Sportwagon," quoth he. (Steane says he might have been wrong about something once, but he can't remember when.)

Jury, what do you think? Is this the Sportwagon for the FG Falcon? Does this look "more horn" than the Commodore Sportwagon? Could such a car spark a wagon-led recovery for Ford Australia?