A candid shot of the Ford Orion supplied by car buff Andrew Toy.

Ford's top secret 'Orion' is out and about on public roads and leaving a tantalising trail of clues in its wake.

The replacement for (or the next generation of) Falcon is due to come out from behind the covers early next year but in the interim sharp-eyed car buffs are snapping away every time the family sedan hits the test circuit.

Canberra's Andrew Toy was heading through Cooma when he came across a pair of heavily disguised Orions and a brace of support vehicles. Toy found the Orions, a black V8 with power bulge on the bonnet and a white six-cylinder, driving through the Snowy Mountains.

“I'm a Holden man but I have to say that when he took off in that V8 the sound was sensational,” Toy says. “The guys in the cars did everything they could to keep me away, even to the extent of the support guys putting their cars between me and the two disguised models.”

Toy says both cars were wearing a lot of cladding designed to change certain key elements of the profile to hide details of the most important Blue Oval car in a decade.

“From behind they look like there are VE-style wheel arches, they look longer and the badge on the front grille is easily twice as big as on the current model. Even under all the tape you could see the changes to the tailights and the rear window, which looks to be a lot more raked than on the current Falcon.”

From the photos Toy managed to snap it is clear the rear door has been changed with a concerted effort to hide the new look.

The current Falcon's narrow rear-door opening is the bane of taxi passengers and it is one of the things that will be fixed when the new car hits showrooms.

Ford has made little secret of the styling cues the new Orion/Falcon has borrowed from the Mondeo's so-called 'Kinetic' design language.

The vent just behind the front wheel and rear spoiler on the boot indicate that the black car belongs to the XR/GT family.

 Have you spotted the Orion on our roads, if so where have you seen it?