V8 Shootout – Ford Falcon XR8 vs Holden Commodore SS
April 27, 2009 by Paul Maric
Last Thursday we embarked on an all Aussie V8 Shootout. We put Ford’s FG Falcon XR8 on the dyno with Holden’s VE Commodore SS (AFM) to determine which produced more power. On top of that, we also attacked our private circuit to determine straight line acceleration and braking figures for both vehicles.
The results, although not remarkable, will show you just how much of an advantage one of the cars has. Check out the video below for the results.
The results give us the following insight into power/weight ratios:
Holden Commodore SS (AFM): 118.57kW/tonne
Ford Falcon XR8: 128.99kW/tonne
The Falcon’s weight obviously plays a major part in its ability to accelerate with ferocity, but the power/weight figures suggest it still has the edge due to the greater power output. We tested 0-100km/h, 1/4-mile and 100km/h-0 braking using the VBOX supplied by Applied Measurement.
You will have to check back to this page at 1:30PM AEST on Monday, 27th April to get the results via a live video cross. You will be able to send questions in to us via the console below while we are broadcasting and we will answer questions while we are streaming live.
The final event and the last blow in the shootout will be our economy drive on Tuesday, 28th April, leaving South Yarra at 6AM.
Print it: 
one more blindness bogan with big mouth.dinosaurs=history.
Sick Of Bogan keep it up mate,you’ll get yourself banned with insulting comments. You have been reported .
So what if the Falcon and Commodore are so called “Dinosaurs”
The Shark and the Crocodile are two fairly simple animals which were around during the time of the dinosaurs that overtime have evolved and have managed to outlive a number of more powerful supposedly more intelligent creatures.
They are feared by some but revered by many…. just like the Falcon and Commodore.
Car advice,how about using a normal camera to record your video articles.What you are using now, gives terrible quality,also choose better places to film for example in the first article you had noisy background noise.
If you want to be taken seriously as a business,do not cheapen your brand image by creating a negative perception within customers minds,through the use of sub satisfactory film production.If you are not convinced just look at how your competitor “drive”,films there articles,they are superior in every regard.
A little off topic, but I just want to see someone drop the 5.4ltr supercharged V8 from the Ford GT into a Falcon and see how it goes. 410kw & 677nm… ;-) Probably not even doable but I can dream.
Jeremy: comparing caradvice to drive is a little unfair. Drive have a much bigger budget and this includes a dedicated media hosting service, which means they can have videos streaming at high speed off their host. Obviously caradvice don’t have anywhere near this sort of funding and as a result need to rely on other media hosts such as “bambuser”. For all we know their video is awesome quality, but once it gets re-encoded by bambuser is low quality.
However Jeremy, Drive may have the better equipment, but the CA staff are far better and hide their personal favorites far better than Drivel and their love of anything team red!!! :p
As for the IQ rating, I reckon I’d struggle to get 50 points, but have hand built (not paid someone else to do it) enough rally cars and street legal drag cars, and been involved in the motor industry for over 20 years to know that if I see a thread I’m not going to like, “I DON”T READ IT!!!” Sorry but being dumb and chosing what I read rather than being smart and having to put comments on stuff I dont like sounds a hellava lot more intelligent to me
I’ve been called worse Simon and couldn’t give a crap since when does your opinion matter to me as far as I know you could be a pubescent teen that discovered they could perform autofellatio and think your better than everyone because of it. What gets me is deadset idiots coming onto this site and trying to start trouble by calling anyone who likes Aussie built muscle cars a bunch of bogans, while adding nothing towards the conversation.
“Gee the FG Falcon was a real failure, terrible car.”
Matrix, I really don’t need to here your rubbish. I’ll take the facts thanks.
Simon, the way you go on not respecting the fact that people in this country have right to admire locally built cars by calling them “Bogans” only shows how you’re just one yourself. Who gives a shit about how old you are and what your occupation is, you still immature and desperately need to learn how to grow up and respect the kinds of vehicles that you just not a fan of.
Well, well, well it seems that the Holden myth is well and truly blown out of the water with these test results. I wonder how well Holden can market a detuned V8 to the public? I remember not too long ago that Holden was all about the numbers but now it seems that they are playing a different tune. It sounds like a little desperation to me. They’ve just lost a billion dollar contract in the US and their sales are not looking too good here, especially with their more economical vehicles. Astra replaced by Cruze, oh dear. What next? The commodore car company is looking a little shaky. Couldn’t happen to a nicer car company!
Nothing but web pages of time wasting hum-drum , all over the place , a typical school boy web site.
I like the Ford Falcon F6 because it shits all over a Holden in straight out grunt
AFM = waste of time and money for development, and a false economy improvement for customer in real terms.
Hahaha…..Laughing my guts out! Thanks Lads (& Ladettes if any have contributed to this thread). Your contributions have kicked my day off with a chuckle. I came onto this site hoping to learn a little about the XR8 vs SS prior to purchasing my first new locally built V8 car, I’m delighted to see the age old Ford vs Holden battle is well and truely alive! Both cars are great in my opinion, however it would appear the Ford has performed better in a number of tests and observations (the latter being perhaps a touch “subjective”). Nonetheless I think the team at CA have done an excellent job and have certainly assisted me in my decision making (thanks).