
Sure there are some people who would like to see a new El Camino or a new Ranchero be brought to market by Chevy and Ford, but the sad fact is, they would sell about as many units as a station wagon, less than 5000 units in a year. Like the station wagon the “Ute” as the Aussie’s call them are the dream and desire of auto journalists, one in particular, but for most of America, they’d pass.
Ad to that as well that they would have to be imported from Australia, since the volume would be way to low to produce in a North American plant, between shipping, crash and emissions regulations and currency exchange, it falls solidly into the notgoingtohappen.com category. If you want to drive a Ute, you will have to take a trip to Australia and hope that you can rent one.
So the Ford Performance Vehicles GS Boss 5.0 315 Ute comes about from the new 5.0 four cam Ford motor that has been massaged with different cam timing, a lowered compression ratio and the addition of a Eaton Supercharger. This is a different supercharging unit than the just announced Ford dealer installed unit. The Ute will have two power levels, a base unit that outs out out 428 horsepower (315 kW, hence the name Boss 315) and 402 ft/lb of torque, the higher output engines gets 456 hp and 421 ft/lb of torque.
Get it while you can down under, because as Alan Mullaly announced at the NAIAS in January, the “One Ford Strategy” will see the phase out of the Falcon rear drive platform down under in 2015, after that the Falcon will be based on the front drive Taurus platform. The Aussie’s, who really do like their V8′s will be none to happy about that.
[Source: PickupTrucks.com]