KEY POINTS:
Corporate cabbies, final orders please - Ford Australia has confirmed it will discontinue the long-wheelbase Fairlane and LTD line-up in early-2008, just ahead of the launch of a new Falcon sedan.
The carmaker cites a sharp decline in the large-car market, saying that production of a long-wheelbase sedan for Australasia is no longer sustainable.
The Fairlane/LTD have hardly epitomised good taste over the years, but their passing does mark the end of an era for Ford.
The Fairlane nameplate has been a mainstay of the Ford line-up since 1967, when Ford introduced the first Australian produced luxury car with the ZA Fairlane. Since then, Ford has developed Fairlanes alongside each generation of Falcon. The LTD version first joined the line-up in 1973.
Ford's decision stands in stark contrast to rival Holden, which is steaming ahead with its long-wheelbase Statesman and Caprice models.
But Holden's standalone AUS$190 million investment in developing the new long-wheelbase models from the VE Commodore platform has little to do with Australia or New Zealand. Since 1999, Holden has shipped more than 82,000 long-wheelbase sedans to markets in the Middle East, China and South Korea.
In 2005, GM-branded models based on the outgoing WL-series Statesman/Caprice achieved export sales more than seven times higher than the number sold in Australasia.
