Not long ago, the six-cylinder powered four-door sedan was the car of choice for most folks. Unfortunately, the majority of those cars were Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, and similar snoozemobiles that were reliable and provided good fuel mileage, but little else to praise in the pursuit of performance. They just didn’t stir the emotions up quite like a mid-1990s Impala SS and it’s LT-1 V8. Until the mid-’00s, four-door sedan usually meant run. Then Mopar, Pontiac, and even Mercury got into the mix and sent some cool metal down, but all of them were packing V8s. If you wanted a four-door with a hot six, you were stuck with a front-driver Pontiac or Buick.
That’s why we pay attention to Australia’s ace in the hole, the Barra Six that powered Ford machines to the end of the line. 8.6 seconds in the quarter is brutal performance from a car that looks mostly left alone, save for the parachute hanging off of the back. While there might be a question about whether or not this is truly the quickest Barra in Australia, the fact that it is sporting street plates and running those times earns respect no matter what. We dig it!
Barra’s are a wonderful thing – i’m on a FB group devoted to swapping them into earlier cars, not just Fords, everything from old Land Rovers to Holdens (https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=early%20ford%20barra%20conversions%20%26%20discussion%20group%20of%20australia )
You can pick up a running and registered Barra powered Falcon for a grand these days – the 6’s before the Barra are pretty bloody good too…pick a complete running earlier car for 500 bux or less..
Like the overall car. Very menacing presentation and makes all sorts of good sound. Wish he could get that spool up time a little more reasonable than 10-12 seconds. It’s like watching a sled pull.