Ford Australia's own spy shots of the Ford Orion.
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In a move that could defuse the power of spy shots, Ford has started trickle-feeding official photo hints about the new Falcon, codenamed Orion.
During a press conference yesterday, Ford included images of the car among a disk of photos related to the company’s expanded facilities in Geelong — but did not announce at the briefing that the disk contained Orion content.
Inserted into the photography of noise evaluation rooms and stamping presses were shots of a heavily disguised vehicle being tested at Ford’s You Yangs proving ground.
Apart from some illustration boards found at a Melbourne rubbish dump earlier this year — and published by News Limited newspapers a couple of days later — the images released yesterday are the first Ford-sourced look at the car.
However the company declined to give any information about the car, with president Tom Gorman saying only that more details would be discussed closer to the launch of the sedan in May next year, which will be closely followed by the ute and wagon versions.
But despite the bandaging and taped add-ons camouflaging the Orion, the photos show an echo of the 'kinetic' design of the recently arrived Mondeo.
It is expected that the engine will be a revised version of the 4.0-litre six-cylinder in the current Falcon.
Ford hopes the new vehicle will reverse the slide in Falcon sales over the past few years, as the public moved away from large cars in favour of smaller ones.
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