Ford will end 91 years of car manufacturing in Australia with two of the fastest Falcon sedans it has ever built.
The Falcon has been made at Broadmeadows on the northern outskirts of Melbourne continuously since 1960. The Broadmeadows production line and the Geelong engine and stamping plant will fall silent forever in October 2016.
As the last of their breed, the limited edition Falcon XR6 Turbo Sprint and supercharged XR8 Sprint models are likely to become future classics.
With performance to rival a Porsche, Ford fans are already wondering if the company has built enough.
Just 1400 will be made, including 500 XR6 Turbo Sprints for Australia and 50 for New Zealand, and 750 XR8 Sprints for Australia and 100 for New Zealand.
However, Ford has limited the outputs of both engines to 650Nm to protect the hero status of the last ever Ford Falcon GT released in 2014, which had 351kW of power and 650Nm of torque.
Importantly, the fast Fords will come standard with the biggest brakes ever fitted to a Falcon.
Ford dealers told News Corp Australia they had already taken orders for the special Sprint models before pricing was announced.
The XR6 Turbo Sprint is $54,990 plus on-roads (up by an eye-watering $11,500) and is available with six-speed automatic transmission only.
The XR8 Sprint is $59,990 for the six-speed manual and $62,190 for the six-speed auto, an increase of $6500.
The limited edition models are due to arrive in showrooms in April.
