Last of the best turbo Ford Falcons up for auction

It’s hard to believe that we’re only a handful of months away from it being 10 years since the last Ford Falcons rolled off the production line in Australia, but that decade has gone by swiftly.

The 10 years since October 2016 have passed almost as fast as the Ford Falcon XR6 Sprint, one of two models which celebrated the long-standing sedan with a high-performance send-off, and now the last of those rare models is being offered at auction.

Listed by Burns and Co is build #500 of the 500 XR6 Sprints made for Australia in September 2016, a swansong for the turbocharged 4.0-litre ‘Barra’ straight-six engine which made its debut back in the BA Falcon of 2002, and soon became a cult icon.

Derived from the six-cylinder block which powered the Falcon across multiple decades, the Barra in turbocharged form was able to deliver performance on par with the equivalent V8-powered Falcon XR8, all without the penalty of weight over the front axle.

Available in standard XR6 Turbo, and later G6E Turbo guise across the BA, BF, FG and FG X generations, the Barra also found itself in FPV’s F6s, Force 6 and F6E, though none stood as tall as the XR6 Sprint.

Announced alongside the related XR8 Sprint in 2016, the nameplate harked back to the ED XR6 and XR8 Sprints of the ED from the early 1990s, becoming the pinnacle of the lineup.

Using knowledge from the then-defunct FPV program, the FG X XR6 Sprint stood out with its gold Brembo brakes, staggered wheels, rear lip spoiler and ‘hockey stick’ stripes, though it’s what was under the bonnet which truly made it special.

After the turbocharged Barra initially made 240kW and 450Nm when it first launched in the BA XR6 Turbo, outputs crept up to 270kW and 533Nm by the time the FG X variant came around (excluding the hotter FPV versions along the way).

In the Falcon XR6 Sprint, it was turned up to 325kW and 576Nm in standard trim, while an overboost feature bumped outputs up to 370kW and 650Nm for 10 seconds under certain conditions, sent to the rear wheels via a six-speed ZF automatic transmission.

At the time, the 500 Australian examples (50 more were made for New Zealand) retailed for $54,990 plus on-roads, a $8900 premium over the standard XR6 Turbo. Equivalent to more than $72,000 today, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a relative performance bargain.

For this particular example, Ford dealer John Bradbury bought car #500 for $122,000 at a charity auction when it was new, and it’s done very little since.

According to Burns and Co, it has clocked up just 40 kilometres and never been registered.

The auction takes place from today (July 27) to July 29 as a part of the firm’s July Muscle, Classics & Motoring Auction in Melbourne.