Ford Falcon XR8 to make art gallery debut

THE new Falcon XR8 will make its first public appearance at a Melbourne art gallery as part of Ford’s Outside the Oval fundraising exhibition for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

The launch of the 2014 Falcon XR8 is not until the end of November, but the public is being given the opportunity to see it first from October 4-5 at the 1000 Pound Gallery in Melbourne, after a private unveiling on October 3.

While the XR8 will be the star, the exhibition will showcase 30 works from Ford’s design team.

Ford design director Todd Willing said the exhibition was a great way to introduce the XR8 to the public while revealing another side to Ford and supporting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

“It will showcase some of the talent pool of model makers, sculptors and fabrication staff we have at Ford,” Mr Willing said.

“We’re very proud of the execution of the XR8 – as well as all the entire Falcon range – and we’re proud of the people that engineered and built it.

“The exhibition will show another side to the Ford Design Team.”

One of the artworks on display – Falcon Art Car - has been created by senior clay model-maker Peter Watson. The piece started as a new Falcon ‘body-in-white’ and over time Mr Watson wrapped the car in photos he has taken of various Ford manufacturing staff.

While Mr Watson is used to modeling vehicles in clay, he said the Falcon Art Car work gave him the chance to tell the story of the people behind the Australian-made car.

“I really wanted to show the human side behind the industrial nature in the production/manufacturing of our vehicles here at Ford,” he said.

“There’s a lot of passion right across the company and I wanted to capture that.

“With some assistance, I collected photos of many of our manufacturing employees, many of whom are actually building the Falcon and Territory.

“Each image was individually re-worked using Photoshop to create a ‘pop art’ style collage, which was then printed onto vinyl and wrapped on the body of a 2014 Falcon.”

The 1000 Pound Gallery is in Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne. Entry to the Outside the Oval exhibition is free.