|
When Robert MacNamara became President of Ford in 1960,
he immediately set the Company on the course of producing
a new mass market family car (MacNamara went on to
become Secretary of Defence under President Kennedy and,
then, head of the World Bank). MacNamara's crowning achievement during his tenure at
Ford was unquestionably the Ford Falcon. Ford's publicity
department worked overtime prior to the arrival of the
all new model in Australia, claiming it to be "Australian -
but with a world of difference". But the truth was not quite so jingoistic, as the first
Falcon's were really only a right-hand-drive clone of
their American cousins. The similarities were all too obvious,
but the sleek American lines of the Falcon were actually very
much what the Australian public wanted.
|