It’s Australia’s answer to every Japanese turbocharged inline six, and it’s a strong argument. It’s four liters of fury in a nice package that can be boosted to the moon for some very impressive results. And when you see what one can do and how tunable they are, looking at a Ford V6 that you’d find in a Mustang or Thunderbird suddenly quits making sense altogether. The “Barra” six is a peach of a mill and is gaining worldwide acceptance as one of the great six-banger options you can find. The Aussies eat these things up, and if you ever needed a visual cue why, we have it here in the form of the fastest Ford-bodied Barra race car. It’s an EF Falcon XR6, a sporty version of the basic Falcon that originally left the dealership with a whopping 226 horsepower, in around 1994-96. Keep in mind, the Camaro Z28 from the same time period had 275 horsepower, so this was a legitimate player power-wise. Now? It’s well past the 1,000 horsepower mark and owner Ray Fairfull is chipping away at the Barra record for every last possible tenth.
Many people are still quick to dismiss any six-cylinder that isn’t made by Buick as a non-player. This Falcon would like a word…
