Ford Territory’s final facelift revealed

FORD Australia has revealed official images of its facelifted Territory SUV and the Falcon G6E flagship sedan in the lead up to their showroom arrival in the fourth quarter.

The Territory photographs come nearly two weeks after images of the locally built SUV leaked online, while the G6E follows the official release last week of images of the Falcon XR8 performance hero and its more sedate XR6 sibling.

As expected, visual changes to the popular SUV are more subtle than the updates to its Falcon stablemate and include a new grille and headlight design that brings it into line with the company’s global look, seen on everything from the Fiesta light car through to the Kuga compact SUV and the forthcoming Mondeo and facelifted Focus – both due in Australia next year.

Ford Australia exterior design manager Nima Nourian said the updated design gives the SUV a fresh look, while ensuring it still remains identifiable as a Territory.

“Our customers appreciate the functionality, seven-seat capability and fuel efficiency of the turbo-diesel but we also wanted to deliver a new level of visual appeal with the 2014 Territory,” he said.

“For 2014 the Territory gains a more robust, yet refined design and you won’t mistake it for anything else but a Territory. Visually the surfacing is more architectural and achieves a very cohesive and sophisticated look.” The car-maker said the Territory will again be made available with a choice of either the 4.0-litre inline six-cylinder engine or 2.7-litre turbo-diesel V6, the latter currently accounting for more than half of all Territory sales in Australia.

As with the Falcon, full specifications and pricing will be made available by Ford Australia closer to launch, which is likely to be November or December.

Ford’s global design language is more evident on the Falcon G6E, with the trapezoidal grille with chrome surround and sleek headlights closely aligning with those from the 2015 Mondeo mid-size sedan.

The styling of the G6E is more elegant than that of the XR8. It features a slatted grille and chrome surrounds around the foglights, which appear to be in a G-shape.

Further chrome touches in the headlight bezels and the large multi-spoke wheels cap off the look of the G6E, which Mr Nourian said is unmistakeably a premium model.

“The G6E provides a new level of design detailing. Even casually glancing at the G6E you can see it’s a premium vehicle,” he said.

“There’s some fine craftsmanship in the ‘bright-work’ and the way the front and rear design treatments mesh with the jewellery on the car. It’s very well executed, even down to the front fender vent.” Ford is yet to reveal images of the base variant Falcon, or any rear or interior shots, but these are likely to lob in the coming weeks as the company continues its drip-feed of information.

Both the Territory and the Falcon will be built at Ford’s Broadmeadows plant before the facility closes its doors in 2016.

The company said in a statement that the facelifted Falcon and Territory will kick off a “massive product onslaught” in 2015 that includes the midlife update for the Focus, the new-generation Mondeo, the Mustang performance flagship and the locally developed Ranger-based Everest large SUV.

A facelift for the Ranger utility is also likely, but the company is yet to confirm timing for this.

Territory sales are down 32.4 per cent so far this year, with 5079 units sold to the end of June compared with the 7509 shifted over the same period last year.

The Aussie-built SUV trails the top-selling Toyota Prado (8774 sales) in the large SUV under $70,000 segment as well as the Jeep Grand Cherokee (8610), which is up by a massive 79.2 per cent in year-to-date sales, and the Holden Captiva 7 (5561).