Just to add a bit of clarity to sales history,
Up until about July 2000, AU was selling at between 5,500 -6,500/mth but then fell off a cliff in 2001 and 2002
when sales went down to around 3,500/mth. The introduction of BA saw Falcon climb out of the sales hole,
peaking at 6,500 a month in August '03 but then started the steady decline through BF and BF II.
There's a lot of good reading on this thanks to Russell's sales data in Tech Resources...
LINK
As much as we like to call FG a sales disaster, I think Ford did the best they could but the damage was done
and without $200 mil from the government, we would have just got a BF III and much earlier exit from Aus.