I’ve related the saga of my family’s new XL Falcon wagon a few times before on this forum. It was chosen over the EJ Holden because of the ease of opening the tailgate. It just didn’t stand up to the indifferent country roads in western Victoria in those days – narrow bitumen, gravel edges, and lots of potholes. My mum being a typical farmer’s wife did a lot of the driving, and she found it increasingly difficult to keep it on the road. The shocks wore out fairly quickly and this combined with the vague five turns lock-to-lock steering made 80 mile round trips into town a misery, let alone 200 miles to Melbourne. The driver’s seat slowly collapsed, which made it worse. However, the drive-train lasted nearly 100,000 miles with absolutely no problems, so at least Ford got that right. The ad for the sedan and wagon must be one of the first where Ford used the phrase ‘road car’ – true enough on US-style roads, but not ours. The ad for the rally is slightly misleading, where at first glance it looks like Falcon took the first four places, but the other three were two Cortinas and an Anglia. The Akedemos Trial ran for 250 miles, so one would assume the suspension and shocks would have stood up to that distance. Incidentally, Ford of Canada was the mastermind of Ford in this country. I would have thought they would have been more sympathetic to the early Falcon woes than those in Detroit. Conditions in country Canada would have been similar to ours with long distances on dirt roads. Could be the reason the Frontenac only lasted one year.