Advertising that was truly ahead of itself...

I became aware of the plight of the silver XR’s in 1999 when they had first came onto the market although it was not until part way through 2000 that I stumbled across the story that settled it once and for all. Before that I had often wondered what the actual colour of the car was that was on the original XR6 VCT advertisement (“Performance Technology Ahead of Itself”) as black and white photography has the wonderful quality of being able to disguise a colour. For example, red looks remarkably like blue in B&W, silver can look like any light metallic (although most of those colours would not be suitable for an XR). Either way, I swore that one day I would find out.

Most of us remember the advertisement itself – in it’s full black and white glory with the XR6 VCT racing into the distance and leaving it’s shadow behind. Who made the decision to run with a silver XR is something I’ve yet to find, but I’m glad they did as it started the chain of events that were to eventually see it’s release as a officially available XR colour, and gave the silver AU1 XR’s a special place in Falcon history.

Click on the picture above for a larger image. This picture is of the original advert placed in magazines right across the country.

The shooting of the advert was a tale in itself - with silver not being available as a colour on the first AU’s a special build needed to be created just to get the car ready for the advert. Simple – after all XR’s and Forte’s all travel down the same production line and share the same basic body shell. The Forte was available in Silver so this should be no real problem right – just paint the XR like you would the lower model? Well, obviously this was all a bit too hard for some people and what finally arrived was a black XR with a silver boot lid!!! Ooops...so a quick trip over to the Research Centre finally saw the correct shade applied and Tickford finally got to fit that special one off silver nose cone and body kit as requested (at least they got that bit right!).

One of the first silver XR6’s produced – and showing why everybody had to have one – this particular car was produced in 1999 and delivered to Echuca. You can see more of this car in the Sedans Gallery.

All’s well that ends well right? Wrong! With only a week to go before the advert was to be filmed the film director was horrified to find out there was only one car available... What if for some unknown reason it broke down? What if it had been crashed accidentally? Knowing how much mucking around it took to prepare the first car he dutifully suggested Ford’s quickly prepare a second. He reminded them that helicopters and film crews don’t come cheap – at around $100,000 per day!!! So a second XR (a red one this time) was plucked from the production line and sent to the Research Centre for a quick coat of silver.

Well, the filming went well – as we all got to see - and they didn’t need the second car (better to be safe than sorry – Murphy’s law states that if they only had one car it would have broken down). But what happened to the two silver XR’s? Well both cars had to be effectively written off as they could no longer be sold as new cars with their replacement coat of paint. Further more this was applied hastily meaning that virtually no disassembly was done prior to the respray – just masking up which meant that as soon as you opened the doors the previous colour of the car stood out like the proverbial... So the previously black one was given to Product Developement to be tested to destruction (considering this all happened in mid 1998 this car has probably been crushed by now).

Fortunately the (previously) red car however was given to Darryl Coon, who now races it in the GTP category making it one of the rarest most collectable XR’s in existence! The car retains it’s silver livery and is now painted in a colour scheme not dissimilar to Ford’s own used on it’s silver XR8 Supercar mock up first created for showing at motor shows around the country before development had been finished on it’s body kit. One hopes that Darryl’s car ends up one day in the hands of a collector – with it’s double history as a racing car and film star – and not spattered across the Armco as is the fate of many a race car!

Darryl Coon’s GTP racer – is actually one of the original cars from the advert making this one of the most collectable XR’s in history! It’s partner was not so lucky...

Silver was not initially offered as one of the XR’s colour range in an effort to reduce the inventory having to be kept at Tickford. You see rather than paint the nose cones and body kit parts on the vehicle (and consequently leaving unpainted areas beneath to rust & generally look ugly) all the parts are pre-painted. This means a huge inventory must be kept in all available colours ready to be fitted, to avoid having a huge stock pile of XR’s out in the car park just waiting to have their identifying goodies painted & fitted. And besides, silver had never before been offered on the XR range.

Which caused quite a stir when people started rocking up at dealers to order their silver XR as per the advertisement (and fair enough too!). So how did the AU silver XR’s finally get into showrooms? Well that’s a story for another day...

The original V8 Supercar shown by Ford on it’s stands at motor shows prior to the final development of the Supercar’s body kit. Darryl’s paintjob is far easier to touch up however in the event of a bingle! It’s a nice touch though considering the history of this vehicle...

Thanks go to Ivan Viduka of Tickford Vehicle Engineering for his technical assistance on this article.

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