No doubt the Aussies have developed some neat cars from U.S. left over bits.
They took the Ford 300 Cubic Inch straight six, worked up a dual overhead
cam head and port fuel injection for it and created an awesome engine.
However, based on discussions with a friend from Austrialia, and past
industry experience, the biggest problem with bringing a car in from
Australia is factory quality control. They seem to have some issues in that
area.
Consider the Aussie built Capri. A Mazda design out of Ford Australia. That
thing came off the boat with bolts missing, systems inoperative, or sloppily
installed. According to a friend who worked at a Mercury dealer at the time
almost every one ate over eight hours of dealer prep before they could be
delivered. he told me that one example had two bolts missing from the rear
suspension mounts. One of the remaining was finger tight. They also had a
bunch of post delivery troubles like vibrations in the steering. My friend
went so far as to replace all four tires and it still had a shimmy. I
suggested increasing the durometer of the steering rack bushings, the fix
that worked for the European Capri. It solved the problem.
Later several Ford engineers came and asked him to give them his secret fix.
They wouldn't pay him for his fix so he told them to get out of his bay.
Good luck, GM.
Larry Steckel
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