AAH #110 – Show and Telnack
July 15th, 2011 at 4:06pm
(Archived video after the jump below)
This week we offer an invite to one of the automotive greats. Our guest is Jack Telnack, the man responsible for the design of the first-generation Ford Taurus as well as the 1979 Mustang. He also headed up design at Ford’s Australian branch at the tender age of 29 before serving as the Vice President of Design for 17 years. We’ll be asking him if designing for aerodynamics will kill expressive styling as we know it. As usual, we’ll be getting into some of the hottest topics of the week including the fight against the coming CAFE standard, UAW’s target on VW and why youngsters these days prefer imports to domestics. John McElroy is joined in studio by Motor Trend’s Todd Lassa as well as Drew Winter from WardsAuto.com.
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Comments (4)
July 16th, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Great show John. I really enjoyed the part about the birth of the XA Falcon. as you can see in my ID XA351GT . I own a Falcon here in the US . Mad Max hooked me as well. It took me 20 years to figure out how to get one here and as soon as I could it was on the water bound for the US.
In 2003 I was part of the 26 Aussie Falcons that converged on Dearborn for the 100th. Still to this day it is the largest gathering of these cars outside on Australia or New Zealand. Ford AU upon hearing that we Yanks were bringing our privately imported Falcons shipped over a new at the time XA XR6 turbo sedan and ute. The Sedan was the blue one running around Detroit for years and the Ute was Purple. If Ford was smart they’d bring that over as the Ranger replacement. They had Phil Spender and Gary Roe meet us in Toledo with the new cars . Phil and Gary were running the Broadmeadows plant when these cars were being produced. It was probably the greatest time I’ve ever had.
These cars were produced in incredibly small numbers by US standards. The 2 door hardtop Falcon as Aussies refer to them as were built in 4 variations XA in 1972-73 XB 73-76 XC 76-78 and Landau luxury coupe from 73-76. Only 23,067 2 doors were built in a 6 year period . Compare that to The last US falcon the 1970 1/2 based on the Torino in 2 door form which was built for 6 MONTHS at a total of over 26,000.
July 16th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
That should have new at the BA XR6 turbo sedan and ute.
July 16th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Damn fingers That car total is 22067 not 23067. John is there any way to put a edit feature on this forum?
July 17th, 2011 at 12:07 am
As they say on NPR, “First time caller” (ops, I mean writer). Really enjoyed hearing Jack’s stories. As a life-long sports car guy who wishes he was at RA with your buddy this weekend I must admit I didn’t follow Ford products during Jack’s time but these kind of shows are blast to listen to.