FORD FALCON: IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN'T DO?

Growing up in Plumpton, then Riverwood, then Blacktown, if you saw a Ford Falcon on the road, you could pretty much guess the type of person behind the wheel.

Their appearance, personality, even their weekend plans.

Honestly, that's not really an exaggeration because every Aussie would have experienced one of the Falcon ute models or the XR6 flying past them doing 20km above the speed limit.

The car had a strong association with tradies, bogans, outer suburban estates, farmland fellas, and stretched all the way to housing commission or blokes who thought they were tougher than they actually were.

While I am generalising to a great deal, families and hard-working blue-collar workers drive Falcons too. The ute model is basically a requirement for anyone owning a toolbox. But for the most part, the car carried a very specific personality with it.

From the early 2000s to the mid 2010s, it was a go-to car of the low socioeconomic suburban or housing commission bloke. From burnouts on the boulevard, cracked windscreens, to bald tyres and somehow still passing a pink slip. Man, remember when they used to be called hoons?

These days, the vibe has shifted slightly. An agro tradie in a ute or a ‘very legal’ construction owner/NDIS owner in an XR6 Turbo flying down the emergency lane full of entitlement. The cars are cleaner now, sure, but driven like they're stolen. Wild character development for something that used to rattle past you, held together by hope and stubbornness.

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