Ford Falcon 2007 News

Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup showed nerves of steel in the final laps after a roller-coaster ride in the wet at Mt Panorama yesterday to make it successive Bathurst 1000 titles.The Lowndes-Whincup combination also made it a winning enduro double after success at the Sandown 500 three weeks ago.A mistake from Whincup when he misjudged his line into pit lane on the last driver change nearly cost the Ford Triple 8 Team Vodafone victory.“Craig brought the car home nicely,” Whincup said.“This was an amazing win ... a bit special. To have won Bathurst back-to-back and also win at Sandown, I can't put into words.”Team owner Roland Dane described Lowndes and Whincup's drive as “brilliant”.The win also saw Whincup take over at the top of the leaderboard on 461 points, followed by Lowndes (445) with four rounds remaining before the grand finale at Phillip Island in December.James Courtney (Stone Brothers Racing) was second yesterday and Steve Johnson (Jim Beam) third to make it a Ford trifecta, the first since 1988.Greg Murphy (Tasman Motorsport) was the highest-placed Holden driver, in fourth.Yesterday's race turned in a fraction of a second on lap 150, 11 from the end.Jason Bright (Britek Motorsport), Mark Skaife (HRT) and Russell Ingall (Stone Brothers) were caught out by the change in weather as rain turned the circuit into a skating rink.Bright was leading when he gambled on a late pit stop, to drive the final kilometres on cold slicks as the weather closed in from the southwest.The ploy badly misfired. Across the top of the mountain, at McPhillamy Park, he ended in the sand pit as did Skaife after a close shave with the concrete wall.Ingall also hobbled into the pits on three tyres and no brakes.But the heart-breaking story of the day belonged to Rick Kelly and Garth Tander in the No1 Toll HSV Commodore, after the car was retired on lap 132 of the scheduled 161.Kelly started the day as series leader on 443 points, nine in front of Tander, with Whincup and Lowndes on their rear bumper.“We worked pretty hard and believed we had a package to be up the front, but it just wasn't our day,” Kelly said, knowing he had lost his championship lead.Kelly and Tander ran without luck all day. Mechanical problems plagued the car as early as lap 10.With Kelly and Tander out of the frame in the points, it was left to Skaife and Kelly's brother, Todd, in the No2 HRT Commodore, to take the race to the Falcons of Whincup, Lowndes, and early pacesetters Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards in a FPR Ford.Richards won the start after Winterbottom had put the car on pole by beating off Holden top guns Skaife and Kelly into the first corner and up Mountain Straight.Kelly had no luck, nearly coming to grief on lap 25 as he diced with Lowndes.He shredded the left rear tyre at the end of Conrod Straight at almost 290km/h.The car went into a violent backward skid across the track as Lowndes dived inside, narrowly avoiding being T-boned.The young driver from Mildura nursed the stricken Commodore into the pits for the mechanics to make some hurried temporary repairs, add new rubber, take on a full tank of fuel and swap seats with co-driver Tander at the start of the second hour of racing.When Tander entered the fray for the first time, the Toll Holden entry had dropped to 26th.In the pre-race warm-up, John Bowe's co-driver Jonathon Webb, at the wheel of the No111 Glenford PCR Falcon, sustained mechanical failure halfway up Mountain Straight and hit a concrete barrier.That left pit-crew chief Hayden Morris and his mechanics less than two hours to replace the damaged front-end panels.Another hard-luck story came from Cameron McConville in the No50 Supercheap Auto Commodore. McConville was to have been 16th on the grid, but never got to the start line after the engine on his car blew up on the warm-up lap.“This is hard to believe,” McConville said. “We had some sort of a misfire, but I just couldn't get time to roll the thing back into the pits before the race start. I think we may have dropped a valve or something.”The McConville incident led to the first of seven occasions when the safety car had to be called out.Andrew Jones in the BOC Ford came to an end on lap 53 after fire broke out under the bonnet.

Ford driver Mark Winterbottom produced a stunning lap of Mount Panorama yesterday to take pole position for today's Bathurst 1000.Winterbottom grabbed the honour from Holden ace Mark Skaife with a blinding but imperfect lap in the Top 10 shootout.Skaife slashed 0.9sec from the previous best time by Steve Johnson. But Winterbottom threw caution to the wind to edge out the Holden driver.“I made a couple of mistakes, but I'm thrilled,” Winterbottom said. “Now we can work towards a good result tomorrow. I wasn't thinking too much about the lap today. In fact, I wasn't thinking at all.“I wasn't even breathing across the top of the mountain. What a great thrill it is. It's not every day you win pole at Mount Panorama.”Skaife was disappointed but conceded there was nothing much more he could have done.Garth Tander will start third on the grid after a competent but unspectacular lap. He could not match Skaife's pace across the top, although he was quick going up the mountain.Johnson held the lead for seven of the 10 starters before Skaife blew his time away.Ford star Craig Lowndes threw everything at his lap to the extent of scraping his mirrors across the walls on the top of the mountain, but he never seemed to be on the pace and his last sector let him down.He will start sixth, which is a far from unwinnable position at Bathurst.Ford's James Courtney was disappointing. What looked like a reasonable lap suffered from an untidy exit at Murray's corner, the last turn on the 6.2km track.For the second year in a row, the two-time winner Russell Ingall blew the shootout.Ingall was struggling towards the end of his lap and couldn't hold the Caltex Falcon on the last corner. He took a harmless spin, relegating himself to last place in the shootout and 10th on the grid for the race.In the Sandown 500 last month, Ingall also lost his shootout lap and finished last, but on that occasion he could blame a wet track.Paul Radisich put in a confident lap in the second Toll Racing car and Ingall's mistake elevated him to ninth on the grid, where he will start behind another Kiwi, Greg Murphy.Murphy, who holds the Bathurst lap record, could not find that sort of pace yesterday and went on to finish seventh.Young gun Lee Holdsworth held his nerve for a solid lap and will start fifth, giving his Valvoline Cummins team confidence they can get a good result in this year's event.

That sounds like a warning to the rest of the field.Murphy has won four times, but the ace Kiwi never previously expressed too much confidence in his chances before the event.Those wins were with Craig Lowndes in 1996, Steve Richards in 1999 and back-to-back triumphs with Rick Kelly in 2003 and 2004.After a solid drive into the Top 10 for today's Bathurst 1000, New Zealand's best known motor racer has come out firing.“The car hasn't been doing what I wanted most of the year, but with changes now it is,” Murphy said.“I am starting to become more comfortable and regain my confidence. It's nice to be able to push the car to the limit again.”Murphy will drive with another Kiwi, Jason Richards, for Tasman Racing. They are being kept safe by bookies, who are offering the pair as sixth favourite at $13.But most fans see the event as a race in four, including the experienced Steven Richards in his campaign with Ford star, Mark Winterbottom.Winterbottom put their car on top of qualifying on Friday and said there were faster times ahead.Richards says the FPR Falcon is the best car he has driven at Mt Panorama, no trite statement seeing he has won twice at the mountain. “We couldn't be in a better position,” he said.Holden drivers Rick Kelly and Garth Tander have assumed race favouritism after Ford stars Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup were slightly off the pace in early qualifying.Tander said yesterday he and Kelly would not try to gap the field, even though many consider they have a speed edge on everyone else.“We will try for a consistent pace,” he said, an acknowledgement the expected safety car periods tend to counteract any substantial leads built during the first few hours.Ford fans will not read too much into Lowndes' early qualifying position. He has made a habit of starting slowly this season, but in recent rounds he has produced the goods when it mattered.“We have the form coming out of the Sandown win,” Lowndes said. “We have a brand new car and we are as confident as it is wise to be at Mount Panorama.”The other prominent combination for today's race is Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly, the 2005 winners.Kelly was second last year with his brother, Rick, but Skaife was mangled on the first lap.Skaife's team is acknowledged as having the best backed car in the field, with the support of the Holden empire. The young blokes might like to lead from the front, but drivers with Skaife's experience realise this race is won in the last hour not in qualifying.

Maybe it's like ducks on the water with all the furious action taking place below the surface, but V8 Supercar race driver Craig Lowndes appears to have little difficulty relaxing.At lunch, he banters lightly with the waitress, who recognises him.“Better make it quick,” he says as he places his order.“That's pretty much your job,” she counters.He chides co-driver Jamie Whincup over his cautious choice of food at the Asian-themed restaurant.“And a steak sandwich for him,” Lowndes says. Whincup nods his bashful assent.“I've been feeling off the last few days; bit worried about myself,” the younger driver says.Why would he not be? Tomorrow, he and Lowndes will strap themselves into their 888 Vodafone Ford for seven hours of what most people would regard as torture.For the BF model Falcon “touring car” that Lowndes and Whincup are hoping to pilot to victory in the Bathurst 1000 is not built for comfort. It might look a bit like the street-standard V8 manual but the similarities are strictly cosmetic.First of all, there's the weight. The 888 car (indeed, all the Supercars, whether they carry the Holden Lion or the blue oval of Ford) is required to weigh in at 1355kg, excluding the driver's weight and fuel. The BF V8 off the showroom floor is just a shade under 400kg heavier.Then there's the sheer power of the race car. The V8 Supercars generate about 473kW of power at their maximum revolutions of 7500. That's about 635 horsepower in old money. The V8 you or I might fancy has about 350hp.This year a new differential ratio will mean the Supercars are theoretically capable of more than 300km/h down the famous kinked Conrod Straight.There's also a difference in the price. The street machine sells for about $51,000. The average V8 Supercar represents at least $1million's worth of highly developed motoring expertise and componentary, hardly any of which comes from the Ford or Holden factory.Oh, and another thing; the million dollar jobs don't come with airconditioning. Inside the car, the temperature is about 25C above ambient. So imagine it's 30C at Mount Panorama tomorrow. For Lowndes and Whincup, that means 55C inside the cockpit. Drivers can lose up to 6kg in bodyweight during the seven-hour endurance test.“It's a constant battle,” Whincup says. “The engineers want no airflow through the car, because that means drag, whereas the drivers want lots of air flow so you're always looking for a compromise.”So why would you do it?Easy ... because they love it. It's what makes them want to get up in the morning. After more than a decade on the touring car circuit, Lowndes says he still gets the same adrenalin rush from the V8 monsters as he did when he started out.His passion for the sport, for the cars themselves, is unmistakable.Tweaking them to go just that bit faster, while remaining within the confines of the class rules is a team effort involving the drivers, the engineers and team management.And this year, the 888 team has a new chassis, which they hope will be an important modification.“The new car for the weekend is more of an evolution of the current car,” Lowndes says. “Some of the dash is different, the wiring layout is different. This is our next-generation car and the plan is to build a sister car to this one.”Doesn't sound much. But in Supercar racing, where every vehicle has identical horsepower, identical gear boxes, identical differentials and almost identical steering, brakes and suspension, any gram of advantage has to be taken.The wiring loom in the Supercars weighs between 30kg to 40kg. In the previous “evolution” most of that weight was distributed at the driver's head height. In the new chassis, it's been possible to redistribute that weight lower down, thus producing a lower centre of gravity, which is a good thing. Lowndes and Whincup are hoping the modification will be crucial as tomorrow's 161-lap event wears on.Last year, a Holden Commodore driven by Australian Touring Car Championship arch rivals Rick and Todd Kelly was about a car-length faster than the 888 Falcon down the long straight. So Lowndes and Whincup had to make up that distance on the rest of the course. Shifting the balance of the car by as much as 40kg could be crucial.Lowndes explains the significance of the adjustment: “Around Willowbank, (the horse-shoe-shaped, 3.12km circuit just outside Ipswich where round seven of the ATCC) was run we really didn't notice a big difference car-to-car, but Willowbank's not the most technical. When we take it to a track like Phillip Island or Bathurst, I think we'll notice a bigger difference.“I think we'll notice a big difference across the top of the mountain (at Bathurst) because of the strength of the new chassis itself. This chassis has come up stronger than our current cars, and lighter. I think the lightness was a bit of a surprise.”Interestingly, at Willowbank, Lowndes finished third overall to the highly consistent Garth Tander, who will partner Rick Kelly at Bathurst tomorrow.Kelly, on the other hand, finished a disappointing eighth, while Whincup, now emerging as a serious championship contender, snatched second. So the stage is set for what should be an enthralling race.And as Lowndes knows, it will come down to driver skill, set-up, tactics and a gram or two of luck.“Bathurst is one of the circuits where experience counts for a lot,” Lowndes says. “You learn every year. In 1997, I had a great crash at the top of the mountain. I'd only been there a few years and I was probably too confident. It's a circuit you have to have a great deal of respect for but confidence across the top of the mountain is key.“If you don't have confidence in yourself and in the car, and you're not sure of where to position the car, you're going to lose a second or so across the top and that's huge.”That degree of confidence is now second nature to both Lowndes, 33, and to Whincup, 24. For both were breathing racing fuel fumes virtually from their infancy, and their careers have followed.Lowndes' father, Frank, was a mechanical and engineering member in the famous Peter Brock Holden teams in the late 1970s and '80s, so motorsport was always going to figure in the youngster's ideas.At eight, young Craig took up dirt bike racing but a few crashes and stern words from mum convinced him four wheels rather than two might be the way to go.Starting out in go-karts, he progressed through Formula Ford, in which he won a national title, then Formula Three, the traditional route to Formula One, with the Tom Walkinshaw Racing team.His first drive in V8 Supercars was in 1994, during which he finished a most accomplished second at Bathurst. Since then, he's accumulated three touring car championships, two Bathurst victories and countless podium finishes.Whincup's story is uncannily similar. He started racing karts at age seven and not many years later went on to win the Champion of Champions trophy in the class before he moved on to Formula Ford where he caught the eye of the Supercar talent scouts.Early last year Whincup was offered a three-year contract with 888 Vodafone team. He thinks of it as “an apprenticeship” in the gruelling sport. And so far he has made every post a winner; victory with Lowndes at Bathurst last year, victory in the opening round in Adelaide this year and victory, again with Lowndes, at Sandown. At present, he's third on the championship points table, behind Rick Kelly and Tander, but in front of Lowndes, who is fourth.So tomorrow's race is crucial. Should Kelly and Tander win, they'd be well clear with four rounds to go. But if Lowndes and Whincup win, and Kelly and Tander fail to finish, for example, the 888 boys would hit the lead.And both are confident, committed to do whatever it takes to clinch Australia's most famous race. Early this year Whincup made what he says was one of the toughest decisions of his young life; breaking up with his girlfriend so he could focus on his racing ambitions.“Yeah, that was very tough. Huge, in fact,” he says.They had been together for 11 years. You do the sums.The sense of focus and purpose is unmistakable. The time for bantering is over.

Previous Bathurst 1000 Winners 1963 Harry Firth/Bob Jane Ford Cortina GT 1964 Bob Jane/George Reynolds Ford Cortina GT 1965 Bo Seton/Midge Bosworth Ford Cortina GT500 1966 Rauno Aaltonen/Bob Holden Morris Mini Cooper S 1967 Harry Firth/Fred Gibson Ford Falcon XRGT 1968 Bruce McPhee/Barry Mulholland Holden Monaro GTS

Using a largely untested vehicle in any V8 Supercar race is a risk.Introducing one in the 161-lap Bathurst 1000 on an unforgiving Mount Panorama sounds like a recipe for disaster.But star Ford duo Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup believe it is the “educated gamble” that will deliver them back-to-back Bathurst 1000 titles.The pair admit their Ford Falcon's new chassis and wiring are still an “unknown quantity” going into the great race on October 7 despite testing it for the first time yesterday.But they believe the strategy, not the vehicle, that delivered them an emotional 2006 Bathurst win and this year's Sandown 500 title will prove the difference in the enduro classic.“The chassis that won Bathurst last year, won Sandown and was second in the championship the last two years running (for Lowndes), like everything, has a used-by date,” Lowndes said.“And now we've built a new car. We believe on paper it is a better car so we are putting our best foot forward.“We are going to Bathurst with a bit of an unknown quantity but it's the best we've gotin the workshop so we are pretty confident. (But) it doesn't matter what car we use, it will bethe same strategy.”Whincup said it was a risk worth taking.“It is a gamble but it is an educated gamble. We had a few issues yesterday testing the vehicle but we are very confident of ironing them out,” he said.“If something is going to let us down, it will probably be the wiring set-up because it is all brand-new, but we are confident it will be fine.“It will be a risk but we are willing to take it.”But Lowndes added: “Mechanically-wise, underneath the car it is the same so we know they are reliable.”If anyone is going to pull off such a gamble it is Lowndesand Whincup.Whincup finished 10th overall last year but is Ford's leading driver in 2007, just ahead of Lowndes, a three-time touring car champion and two-time Bathurst conqueror.Whincup is third in the 2007 standings, behind leaders and Holden teammates at Bathurst, Rick Kelly and Garth Tander.Lowndes is fourth.They have put all their eggs in one basket by driving together in the endurance rounds.Just four rounds remain after the Bathurst 1000.They don't have to be told that victory at Bathurst is crucial to either Ford driver winning the championship.But confidence won't be a problem after their 2006 Bathurst victory.“Three-quarters of our (Triple Eight Racing) team had not won there (before 2006) and you start, well, not doubting yourself but you do start to question, `Am I good enough, am I doing it right?',” Lowndes said.“And then there's strategy. The pit stops are so critical now.“If you've got a car coming in and you don't have the full confidence in yourself then you start making mistakes, that jeopardises your race.“But the guys have got overall that because of the victory last year.”

The lure of one of the most coveted prizes in international motorsport has convinced the factory-backed Ford Performance Racing team to pair their star drivers Steven Richards and Mark Winterbottom for next week's Bathurst 1000.FPR copped a fair bit of flak when they split the two drivers for the Sandown 500 earlier this month — a decision caused by conflict between major commercial partners.The race was won by another Ford entry, Team Vodafone, who paired their leading drivers Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup.However, high level negotiations, which have also involved Ford Australia, have resulted in a compromise which will give FPR their best crack at the Bathurst win this year.The team has been runner-up twice at Bathurst since its inception in 2003.Richards and Winterbottom will now co-drive the No.6 FPR Falcon at Bathurst which will combine all three of the teams major sponsor brands Castrol, Orrcon and Ford Credit.The drivers were split for Sandown but both produced commendable results with less experienced co-drivers — Richards was third and Winterbottom eighth.Their co-drivers, Owen Kelly and Matt Halliday, have been rewarded with the drive in the No.5 FPR Falcon.“A great deal of compromise and understanding from all parties has been required for this to take place,” a Ford spokesman said yesterday.The FPR team is operated by the UK based Prodrive team owned by the international motoring identity, David Richards.“We now couldn't be in a stronger position with our main drivers paired,” FPR team principal Tim Edwards said yesterday.“We were strong at the Sandown 500 with one endurance race driver in each of our cars but nothing counts more at Mt Panorama than experience.Holden's Toll Racing team last week announced they, too, would pair their leading drivers after splitting Rick Kelly and Garth Tander — mainly to keep alive the championship hopes of each.They are first and second in the 2007 title chase.

It's just what the fans ordered; the long-enduring Ford v Holden rivalry at the spiritual home of Australian motorsport - Bathurst.The Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 is THE race on every Australian motorsport fan's calendar, and with a few extra incentives, 2007 should be a ripper.Championship-leading team-mates Rick Kelly and Garth Tander will share the drive in the Toll HSV Dealer team Commodore, after good showings in the last round at Sandown.While the Fords dominated, Kelly finished second with Paul Radisich as co-driver, and Tander was fourth with Craig Baird.Reigning Bathurst champs Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup (Team Vodafone Ford) took the honours in Melbourne and will be going all out to make it a Sandown 500-Bathurst 1000 double.Lowndes has done it before, like his former mentor, the late great Peter Brock, after whom the Bathurst trophy has been named.The competition is tight with Rick Kelly leading on 443 points, followed by Tander (434), Whincup (389), Lowndes (373) and Todd Kelly on 324. But Bathurst is more about the race itself as opposed to championship points, and thus the pairings chosen by the respective teams.Bathurst is the big one and the Commodores and Falcons are the main players.The rev-heads will be out in force, though revelry has been contained to some extent in recent years, and the mountain will be packed.Mt Panorama has been the scene of some incredible racing and dramas down the years, with Brock's and Dick Johnson's thrills and spills etched in the minds of Queensland fans.Now, after a changing of the guard, it's the young guns who dominate. Though there are plenty still capable of lifting the Peter Brock Trophy high on the mountain, including former champ Mark Skaife, currently sixth (273 points), the most likely combatants for the big one will be KellyTander (Ford) and LowndesWhincup (Holden).Which ever way it goes it will be another huge weekend of racing at Bathurst, with plenty of fast-paced action, bumps and grinds, plus the roar of the big V8s.

The next-generation Ford Falcon will go better and use less fuel than the current BA model.The Orion-series Falcon will be on the road in March and take Ford's elderly in-line six into its final years before it is replaced by an imported V6 in 2010.But Ford Australia has not given up on the engine, company vice-president of product development Trevor Worthington promises CARSguide some significant improvements for next year, when it appears in the Orion.“The engine has a lot more opportunity in it and we are going to wring its neck for all of that opportunity,” Worthington says.“I'm not going to sit here and say what we are doing, but every time we have improved the engine since BA, (including) performance, fuel economy and refinement and you can be guaranteed we are going to continue down that path.”The Falcon's in-line six was substantially upgraded for the introduction of the BA Falcon model range in 2002 with a package that included twin-overhead camshafts with variable valve timing, as well as the turbo for the XR6.The engine was further improved for the introduction of the 2005 BF Falcon, when camshaft revisions increased power to 190kW and torque to 383Nm.Significantly, fuel consumption was reduced and the six-speed ZF automatic transmission added.That gave the six-speed BF Falcon an official fuel economy figure of 10.2 litres for 100km - 0.7 litres less than the leanest model in the VE Commodore range, though still 0.3 litres more than Toyota's locally developed Aurion V6.GM Holden's $1 billion VE Commodore did not deliver a significant improvement in fuel economy last year and some models actually used slightly more fuel because of extra weight, than the models they replaced.Worthington does not name the VE, but hints at Holden's competitor to the Falcon when he says it is imperative that any new Ford model should deliver fuel savings over the last.“That is what the customers want. If you are not moving forwards, you are going backwards,” he says.“You can't introduce a new car and (have) worse fuel economy. Some of our rivals have done that, but if you were a customer, what would you say?”He says other elements of the car must be as good or better than those of the previous models and it is the same with the engine.“If I get into a car and I have worse ergonomics or worse brakes . . . if you are trading in the old one, you expect everything to get better, and the powertrain is a really big part of it.”Though some improvements will be introduced for the Orion Falcon, others include design changes that would have seen the in-line six upgraded to satisfy Euro4 emission requirements, which were frozen when Ford Australia decided to switch to a US-sourced V6 from 2010. 

Ford is the latest manufacturer to join the rush to space-saver spare tyres. From October the Falcon range will come with a temporary space-saver spare tyre as standard despite the company's insistence last year that there were no plans to follow Holden's lead.“There was criticism of Holden when the VE was launched without a full-size spare and some of it was from us,” Ford Australia President Tom Gorman conceded in announcing the Blue Oval's move.Holden launched its VE range with a standard space-saver spare, an industry first for the Australian-made family-car market.“Since then we have been watching the market and this is where the market is moving. Consumers are telling us by what they are buying that a temporary spare tyre is not a major issue.”Gorman says a full-size spare will be available as an option in line with Holden's marketing, and the price of a full-size alloy has been cut from $400 to $150, while a 16 inch steel spare is $100.“It has become obvious that the full-size spare gave us no commercial advantage in the market,” Gorman says. While the move will trim 5kg from the Falcon's overall weight, Gorman says it will not provide any significant savings for the company in production costs nor shift the Falcon's fuel-economy rating.“There are some small savings but nothing that is going to make any real impact,” he says.While the last of current Falcons will be made with a spare tyre well capable of holding the optional full-size wheel, that will not be the case when the new Orion range arrives early next year.Gorman says the market's acceptance of space-savers spares will provide extra flexibility for the Orion cars with the possibility of two boot configurations, one for customers who are satisfied with a space-saver and want extra storage space and another for those who specify a full-size spare.Ford has also deleted the Barra 220 and Barra 230 V8s from its engine range.The decision to no longer offer the 5.4-litre 24-valve engine was driven by the Ford North American's decision to close the Essex plant in Windsor, Ontario, where the engine is made.“In reality it is not that big a decision,” he says. “We were only selling around 10 of those engines a month. We are not talking big numbers.”The affected models are the Fairmont Ghia, the Fairlane G220 and G8 and the LTD. The XR performance cars will not be affected as they use the 32-valve V8 which is still freely available.Gorman says Ford Australia has stockpiled enough of the three-valve engines to meet model demand until the arrival of the Orion. While Ford struggles to bolster its Falcon sales in the run-up to the arrival of the all-new model early next year, Gorman says he still has faith that the new car market will tip one million sales this year.“There are a couple of factors that could impact in the latter half of the year,” Gorman says. “Interest rates (rising) will have an effect. The federal election is another factor out of our control, but in any event the market will be one million and that will be a record.”