2010 Ford Falcon XR6 turbo review

If the Ford FG XR8 is a muscle car, then the XR6 turbo is the dancer of the Ford Falcon XR pair. I said in my previous test of the Ford Falcon XR8 that it is more likely to lose traction and step sideways more readily than a politician, and much the same can be said of the XR6 turbo but with a difference.

As with the XR8, the XR6 turbo inherits what is essentially the same engine that came out of the equivalent FPV model. In the XR6 turbo this means 270kW and 533Nm – 13Nm more than the new XR8 – but most importantly it’s the way that the XR6 turbo delivers that torque that makes the difference. This is probably the only instance when turbo spool up time improves the driving experience.

You see, the six pot engine in the XR6 displaces 4.0 litres, which means that even without a turbo there would be plenty of acceleration on hand from the moment you hit the throttle.

In the XR6 turbo the time taken for the turbo to spool up to maximum pumping capability means that the rubber on the rear tyres has time to grip the road before being rudely ripped away by excess torque.

You still have to be careful and delicate on the throttle, because once you hit the peak torque at 2000rpm it’s all too easy for the rear tyres to lose grip again.

I wouldn’t recommend it to most divers, but disable the stability control and the car becomes alive. With stability control on power delivery is stunted by the engine management and the brakes, giving you remarkably inconsistent behaviour to your steering, braking, and accelerating input. Put it down to ultimate safety, and the fact that every carmaker has to build its cars so that an orang-utan can drive the car without plowing into anything else on the road.

What makes the XR6 turbo much more fun than the XR8 is that it takes a little weight out of the nose of the car, making it more willing to change direction. The engine in the XR8 came from the American F-150 truck, in which it doesn’t matter about a heavy front end. The XR6 on the other hand combines a good engine with a relatively light weight, and so it has inherently better balance on the road.

Think martial arts verses wrestling. A wrestler has lots of weight, but can’t move too quickly. A martial arts expert is light and changes direction easily, and that’s the XR6 turbo.

The strangest thing is that when driving the XR8 I left the gearbox mostly in auto, but with the XR6 I used the sequential sports shift because it felt like I had a better connection between driver and engine. The Ford marketing people say that technically oriented people (i.e. geeks) prefer the turbos, so I put my hand up and say that yes, I’m a geek, and I much prefer the XR6.