Sometimes, even the forgotten things can keep you up all night, thinking it’s either a nightmare or a hilarious dream. It all depends on your POV, frankly, as is the case here, exemplified with help from this quirky Ford Falcon turned racetrack monster.
The nameplate has three major explanations, all pertaining to different regions. Younger automotive fans might know it solely as the Australian version – a car produced from 1960 until 2016 over seven generations. It was even derived as a Ute, by the way, while Ford also made a Falcon van during the run of the first-generation Ford E-Series van.
The most obscure Ford Falcon – unless you’re living in South America – might be the car built by Ford Argentina between 1962 and 1991, whereas the original North American Ford Falcon was also the shortest-lived model line. It lived from 1959 for the 1960 through 1970 model years and was swiftly replaced by the Ford Maverick – the compact car, not the current unibody pickup truck, of course.
Few would dare to take on the task of bringing back to life a Ford Falcon in the United States, but even fewer would go on a rampage and turn it into a dweller of the local quarter-mile dragstrip venues. However, always expect the unexpected at the racetrack, so here’s a buttery-smooth-looking Ford Falcon that feels like an original piece of memorabilia with its Ford script on the sides.
That’s only until you see the humongous exhaust pipe coming out from underneath the right front fender and also stare with your jaw dropped on the floor at the serene cookie cutters at the front and the tractor-like humongous rear tires! It’s a lifted Ford Falcon, by the way – but it won’t go on any off-road adventure any time soon, that’s for sure.
Instead, the owner was caught by the good folks over at the racing-focused ImportRace channel on YouTube, who are back to their usual venue – Island Dragway – for some feisty Old vs. New action while also attempting to settle a Ford versus Mopar score against a modern (yet also defunct) Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat.
The dark Mopar menace seemed prepared for the skirmish, and the first skirmish saw them get off to a roaring start side-by-side. After that, the angle of the footage didn’t give us a good point of view to see which car had the upper hand in the old versus new school battle. No worries, the track’s electronic scoreboard quickly gave us the answer: 10.29s versus 12.05s at 139 and 109 mph, respectively. In the end, although the lifted Falcon gave it its best attempt, it was not enough to beat the mighty Mopar.
No worries, the latter’s driver was still courteous enough to award the rematch – albeit the Falcon driver was too eager to win during the second skirmish and red-lighted the start. Again, that wasn’t going to make a difference, anyway, because the feisty Mopar developed a much higher trap speed (144 mph versus 109 mph) and won the battle with a 10.36s versus 12.12s elapsed time. Still, it was quirky and cool at the same time to witness the trials and tribulations of the lifted ‘bird’ – a Ford Falcon and his owner, who probably didn’t care about the looks of surprise on people’s faces when they saw this contraption at Island Dragway for some traditional test & tune activities.