WTF !!! VE Wheels Car Of The Year !!!!

[MITCHAY]

Originally Posted by Ryan

About time someone said it.

I hate it when people slag off OHVs for being old tech (Usually boy racers and their fulli sik DOHC 4s), when OHCs and DOHCs are just as old. (Maybe a bit newer, but not by much)

Comparing OHVs to OHCs is like comparing a blonde to a brunette. As long as they put out who really cares :

I love my fulli sik DOHC 4 too :P

[blackahcdx]

Originally Posted by colossus

and the fact the resales stinks more than a dead fish...

Then falcon must have resale that stinks more than a whole pod of dead whales

[TheSneakiness]

Why don't recalls count in the grand scheme of things?

I think VE being COTY is a load of ****...

[jimmy_c]

The upspec versions maybe good but the rest is cutprice ALDI

[barks]

Come on guys..lets give credit where credit's due..the VE is a great car, unfortunately there wasn't a Ford product that fit the COTY criteria (ie new design) to go up against it. Lets hope the next Falcon/Orion is good enough to step ahead of the Holden like the BA did. My prediction for next COTY is Ford Falcon/Orion.

[Dave_au]

Originally Posted by barks

Come on guys..lets give credit where credit's due..the VE is a great car, unfortunately there wasn't a Ford product that fit the COTY criteria (ie new design) to go up against it. Lets hope the next Falcon/Orion is good enough to step ahead of the Holden like the BA did. My prediction for next COTY is Ford Falcon/Orion.

Well said.

The VE is a good car, and has allowed Holden to pioneer the new Zeta platform, which should guarantee Holden's survival for the next decade.

I like the SSVs in particular but I have had concerns over the build quality of the earlier cars - maybe they'll get better once they have had a few months of production. I'll wait for the Orion before I decide for my next purchase.

Speaking of which - where are the Ford Orion mules? How viable is the new Falcon project? Why did the development of the program hinge on an $80m development grant for export harmonisation? Are the costs of the Orion going to be that bad that it's not going to be viable on domestic demand alone?

Originally Posted by LSTerritoryGhia

Yes sad that my $48 k Calais can wip your $65,000 BF GT which is suposed to be a HERO Car.

Good for you!

Said even better.

Originally Posted by jimmy_c

The upspec versions maybe good but the rest is cutprice ALDI

Yeah but XTs are no better - really cab spec. The only base model car by a local manufacturer that comes anything greater than ALDI spec as you put it would be the Aurion AT-X

[DJL351]

I've driven the VE. It was an SS manual.

It was okay..... on par with the BA BF Falcons of the same type (XR8's)

I'm bias, yes, but I went with an open mind because of all the hype and BS
people were talking about it leaving us in the stone age.

Having driven my best mates VZ/VY SV6 I had the previous model to compare against too.
Some things were better, over the VZ and BA/BF, but I see it more as an equal to Ford's current cars than a big step forward.

The dealer wouldn't let me loose in any HSV's. :

D :

[MITCHAY]

What's funny is some people will say that it is crap in on sentence and then in another say that it has only caught up to the BA/BF.

That to me implies that they must think that the BA/BF is crap! :

[Sledgehammer]

[uranium_death]

The Commodore represents a good complete package, and is also a new car which captures the imagination of everybody.
Although the Falcon has superior transmission and a superior 6 cylinder (which is what most Australians go for), the car is essentially a four year old (5 later this year) design.

Holden have worked on safety and handling to make a better car.

My dispute with WCOTY is that the gullibles will believe that the Falcon is a piece of poo compared to the Commodore which is untrue. The Commodore are on the front foot atm, so IMO, Ford need to only improve handling, interiors, pricing etc. a little, but ensure the car looks modern and tasteful to the masses.

Everbody new Commodore body wins the award, but I am not surprised. Most people I talk to prefer Holden because they win the V8s. Australians love bandwagons. Looks at St Kilda and Sydney. Dead one year, thriving the next.

I wonder...

And yes, I do believe the crap I type. I like crap. It tastes better then Victoria Bitter or Coke.

[boy02]

Ford beat GMH in the sales stakes with the XP & XR, and when ppl think of aussie muscle car they think XY GTHO.......[QUOTE]

thats funny the only thing that cums to mind wen i think XY GTHO is a car that can be beaten round bathurst by a non turbo'd inline six but that might just be me

[mik]

[QUOTE=boy02]Ford beat GMH in the sales stakes with the XP & XR, and when ppl think of aussie muscle car they think XY GTHO.......

thats funny the only thing that cums to mind wen i think XY GTHO is a car that can be beaten round bathurst by a non turbo'd inline six but that might just be me

re:xyphase 3
The following two years would see Moffat come into his own as one of Australia's most dominant race drivers, and the Falcon GTHO as an almost unbeatable car. For 1970, Ford had made significant improvements to the Falcon XW GTHO Phase II over the previous year's model and Moffat, racing without a co-driver, took the car to two crushing victories in the 1970 and 1971 Bathurst races. In 1971 he became the first driver to lead the Bathurst 500 from start to finish while driving the famed Ford Falcon XY GTHO Phase III.

[BadMac]

Originally Posted by mik

re:xyphase 3
The following two years would see Moffat come into his own as one of Australia's most dominant race drivers, and the Falcon GTHO as an almost unbeatable car. For 1970, Ford had made significant improvements to the Falcon XW GTHO Phase II over the previous year's model and Moffat, racing without a co-driver, took the car to two crushing victories in the 1970 and 1971 Bathurst races. In 1971 he became the first driver to lead the Bathurst 500 from start to finish while driving the famed Ford Falcon XY GTHO Phase III.

Sorry, remind me what happened in 1972?

[Falcon Coupe]

Originally Posted by BadMac

Sorry, remind me what happened in 1972?

Would that be the wet race that helped less powerfull cars get up front ?
Or was it just the break between XY and XA hardtop domination ?

[mik]

Originally Posted by BadMac

Sorry, remind me what happened in 1972?

ok
The Falcons still looked to have a mortgage on the race - but it rained giving the lighter more nimble Holden Dealer Team Holden's the slight edge that they needed. Holden dealer Team driver Peter Brock took the race - it was one of the "longest" finishes on record. Brock a lap ahead of second placed John French (Falcon), who in turn was a lap ahead of the Doug Chivas E49 Charger, with another Charger and two Torana's each a further lap down on the previous car.

The wet conditions and greasy track took its toll of cars. Apart from Bond, another four Torana's slid off the track and Ford driver Fred Gibson tipped his Falcon on its roof just before Skyline - almost half-way between Bill Brown's two spectacular crash sites of years before.

1972 marked the end of yet another stage in the development of the race - the last event to be contested over 500 miles.

they were lucky :

[BadMac]

Originally Posted by mik

ok


they were lucky :

Lucky, yeah right. Lucky it wasn't a Ford.
If its a Holden it will never be given credit, its either Luck, bribes, bias or a judge trying to punish fordies.

[XBROO]

Yeah! Least it an aussie car. But it looks to euro for my liking. Like an over grown mazda 6. Why are car manufactures going for the euro look? If you took the badges of some of them its hard to tell them apart. Somebody bring back the Australian muscle cars instead of BMW look alikes.

[Deadman]

Ah well, I'd bet money now that in 2008 the Orion Falcon will be Wheels Car of the Year, and it'll **** all over the VE. The difference being, it took Holden nearly 5 years to start catching up, and I wouldn't be supprised if in just over 12 months they'll be just as far behind again.

[Powdered Toast Man]

Nah I cant see any similarities here :

Like Bucket said even Holden says that it used design influences of Audi, BMW and Mercedes in their design.

[Coalminer]

Originally Posted by V8GLI

Nah I cant see any similarities here :

Like Bucket said even Holden says that it used design influences of Audi, BMW and Mercedes in their design.

Yeh i see what your talking about:

Antenna location.......mmm.........Nope
Rear tail lights...........mmm........nope
bootlid shape..........................nope
rear 1/4 panels........................nope
door handles...........................nope
1/4 window in rear door.............nope

What they said was the the Audi, Mercedes and BMW were used to benchmark the finish and fit of car components.

Your right though, the simarlarities between those 2 cars is uncanny. A silver BF falcon gt without stripes from the same angle looks nothing like those 2 cars.

I notice the BF Falcon wasn't bused as a benchmark......... :

[HSE2]

Yeah well done to Holden. Nice to see a proportionally challenge product break through for a win.

Its real shame for a brand new design they couldn't engineer a split fold rear seat. You could understand it if the shell actually out rated the aging BA platform for structural rigidity across the spectrum but surprisingly it doesn’t achieve that.

We have seen it time and time again that when the Ford product is tested back to back with the VE the Ford is taking more then its share of points from the ALL NEW Holden. The fact that the Ford was ineligible for this contest isn’t testament to the value or worth of the respective products.

Like in every contest all you can do is beat the competition that is pitted against you. Holden have done that on this occasions so good on them. But they didn’t lift the bar as expected and underachieved in key areas to get my money.


The VE came up short for me. As for hero cars and where they should sit in the scheme of things, I wonder why a carry over Ford product was able to comprehensively beat the supposedly best hero car to ever come out of Holden performance workshop?

It’s simply not a clear cut issue any more.

Originally Posted by HSE2

Yeah well done to Holden. Nice to see a proportionally challenge product break through for a win.

Its real shame for a brand new design they couldn't engineer a split fold rear seat. You could understand it if the shell actually out rated the aging BA platform for structural rigidity across the spectrum but surprisingly it doesn’t achieve that.

We have seen it time and time again that when the Ford product is tested back to back with the VE the Ford is taking more then its share of points from the ALL NEW Holden. The fact that the Ford was ineligible for this contest isn’t testament to the value or worth of the respective products.

Like in every contest all you can do is beat the competition that is pitted against you. Holden have done that on this occasions so good on them. But they didn’t lift the bar as expected and underachieved in key areas to get my money.


The VE came up short for me. As for hero cars and where they should sit in the scheme of things, I wonder why a carry over Ford product was able to comprehensively beat the supposedly best hero car to ever come out of Holden performance workshop?

It’s simply not a clear cut issue any more.

Top post Ian.

In some ways VE has only just caught up (6spd auto although still below par), decent rear suspension. But at the same time considering, as you say, Falcon ran the VE so close or even beat it in some areas, is a real testiment to how good the BF Falcon is.

[banarcus]

Just to add a little spice to the BA-BF GT is just a starter and a badge debate, I'm sure that the V8 'starter and badge' car will be worth FAR more than the ducks guts VE Calais in 5 or 10 years. Hmm nah make that the VE Calais will be worth less than a already 3 year old BA GT in 12-18 months. Perhaps we are all wrong about the poor old slow '03-'06 Falcon GT and Mr Calais has seen the 'red' light

[Smoke Pursuit]

Originally Posted by banarcus

Just to add a little spice to the BA-BF GT is just a starter and a badge debate, I'm sure that the V8 'starter and badge' car will be worth FAR more than the ducks guts VE Calais in 5 or 10 years. Hmm nah make that the VE Calais will be worth less than a already 3 year old BA GT in 12-18 months. Perhaps we are all wrong about the poor old slow '03-'06 Falcon GT and Mr Calais has seen the 'red' light

Bit like your XR8??

Neways i dont need to carry on about it. The simple fact is the car won the award and did so fair and square.

Regardless of how you guys feel I still am a Ford bloke and like the product, but when it comes down to comparing apples with apples Ford is definately lacking in some parts, this is reflected in the sales at the moment.

[banarcus]

Originally Posted by LSTerritoryGhia

Bit like your XR8??

Neways i dont need to carry on about it. The simple fact is the car won the award and did so fair and square.

Regardless of how you guys feel I still am a Ford bloke and like the product, but when it comes down to comparing apples with apples Ford is definately lacking in some parts, this is reflected in the sales at the moment.

I was only critical of the low rent V6. They are poo even in the lighter VZ form, the VE is a great car and deserved the praise but... As for my XR8, it sounded far better inside and out than the VE SS that my father-in-law and I took for a test drive. Sure the VE would have beaten my Falcon by half a second or so over the quarter but where do I get the chance to do that day in day out? Personally, there are things that give me more pleasure than poofteeths of seconds that it takes to get to 100km/h and the 1/4 mile. Give me the sound of a Ford V8 anyday than that of the powerful and fast hairdryer Chev engine.

PS. I'd love to have a Falcon GT(second hand) but my budget wouldn't stretch that far because of the value they retain.

[Dave_au]

Originally Posted by banarcus

Just to add a little spice to the BA-BF GT is just a starter and a badge debate, I'm sure that the V8 'starter and badge' car will be worth FAR more than the ducks guts VE Calais in 5 or 10 years.

Resale rating over three years for the FPV GT is 58%, resale rating for the VE SS-V over three years is 53%, resale rating for the VE Calais is 48%. Massive.

[bob^]

As long as the award stays here in Australia and helps out the local car industry then good on em for winning COTY!

[Melz]

Originally Posted by bob^

As long as the award stays here in Australia and helps out the local car industry then good on em for winning COTY!

Couldn't agree more bob!

To those of you who don't think the VE was a worthy winner, why not try driving it for a week. Its not my cup of tea, but I don't go out of my way to bag a car until i've at least driven it and can make an informed decision! We are all armchair experts, but its different when you are in the drivers seat.

Also remember the guys who judged this are probably the same guys that judge the Territory as the winner a couple years back!

Well done Holden, Ford you now have something to really chase.....

[FTE217]

Whats all the harping for ?
Nothing like good opposition to keep you honest and to get you to work harder next time.
GM has been spanked since 2002, we have enjoyed many victories off and on the track.
Do you think they were going to lie down ?
Well done GM, I'm not a base model lover of any brand but Calais up VE range is top notch imo........

[Bucknaked]

Looks like a few people woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I always say that if you drive a car, and it feels good, then that's good enough. Who really cares what a bunch of opinionated journo's write about or vote for. At the end of the day, its what you think about the car that matters. No matter what wheels says, I'll stick with my falcon's. Because awards are nothing. Car of the year, what is that anyway