Ford Performance Vehicles has revived Total Performance, Ford's dominating race-bred commitment from the 1960s that transformed everyday Ford cars and drivetrains into winners whether they were on the race track or the road. This story is about how Total Performance allowed Ford Australia to become the dominant force on the Australian market with cars that were superior in almost every way. And how the process has started again.....

Grab yourself a coffee, light up the biggest computer screen you have and settle in for one of the wildest and most fascinating rides in automotive history - Total Performance. In an amazing yet most fortuitous set of circumstances, the ride continues in Australia as FPV breathes new life into the Total Performance tradition.

Even Australians are not fully aware of the long history of improvisation and independence in the local automotive industry that is way out of proportion with the size of this relatively young nation. Ford Australia continues to be a prime mover when it was the first and therefore the longest with extensive manufacturing facilities in Australia. Ford is still the sole manufacturer of an all-Australian family car and now the first to offer a purpose-built cross-over vehicle with a totally unique body style conceived and engineered in Australia.

It was the first to offer GT models in each range (Escort, Cortina, Capri, Falcon) ready to dominate whichever category of motorsport Ford Australia chose. FPV is also committed to developing premium performance models across the Ford range.

The Australian motor industry has its origins in both world wars after enemies of Great Britain, US and Australia attempted to block main sea links to starve Australia of vital manufactured goods. As Britain struggled to repel Hitler, Singapore fell to the Japanese in World War II and no Australian government since has dared to consider a future without a vibrant local car industry.

After providing vital wartime machinery and servicing, both Ford and Holden were encouraged at the end of World War II to shift to full manufacture. This included a new commitment to a local toolmaking and component industry. Ford Australia's local tooling operation that services global clients is second to none and is a direct result of this post-war transition.

This post-1945 infrastructure would also become vital in the local application of Total Performance. Ford Australia could draw from the best around the Ford world and encourage its own engineers and suppliers to take it to another level. It is a process that produced very different Total Performance solutions to the rest of the world and continues to this day as Ford and FPV deliver what many regard as the best rear drive passenger cars produced anywhere in the Ford world.

This section documents this process and reveals how the many threads of Total Performance met in Australia and continued long after it had run its course in Europe and the US.