The Second Coming

Premcar brings the falcon back from the dead, answering the prayers of the ford faithful who were denied a modern-day GT-HO.

- Scott Newman 

THE GAME of automotive ‘what ifs?’ is a fascinating one. What if Old Man Enzo had gone through with the sale of Ferrari to Ford? What if the discovery of Texan crude oil hadn’t killed the electric car? What if Ayrton Senna had lifted slightly on that fateful lap at Imola? Such questions make for fascinating pub banter but rarely lead to any real conclusions.

Thanks to Victorian engineering specialists Premcar, one of the greatest Aussie automotive questions has now been answered: what if Ford had built a modern-day GT-HO? Who, I hear you ask? Premcar sprang into existence following a management buyout of Prodrive Engineering in 2012. Prodrive, you may remember, was responsible for a lot of the engineering work on the Ford Performance Vehicles range and had a controlling 51 per cent stake until it sold up.

Simply put, many of the folks Ford tasked with making its fast Falcons have together developed their ultimate version, freed from corporate constraints but using many of the same suppliers. Meet the Falcon Holy Grail. In essence, the Holy Grail package fulfils the potential of the 5.0-litre supercharged V8, dubbed Miami, developed by Prodrive for the FG Mk II FPV range and subsequently installed in the FG X XR8. It consists of a new cast aluminium intake manifold, a triple-pass waterto-air intercooler, new power steering and coolant pumps, front-mounted air-to-water heat exchanger and unique engine calibration to make it all work.

Intercooling is the key that unlocks the Miami’s power vault. While not exactly a wallflower in standard form, producing up to 345kW/575Nm or 400kW/650Nm on overboost, the ability to control combustion temperatures renders transient overboost redundant and allows the Holy Grail to pump out a whopping 483kW at 6800rpm and 753Nm from 4500-5200rpm.