death of an Aussie icon The Ford Falcon, part of Australia's landscape for half a century, is driving into the sunset. Next year's model will be the last, its fate sealed by Ford's decision to axe manufacturing at its factories in Geelong and Broadmeadows, in Melbourne's north, in 2016 with the loss of 1200 jobs. As iconic as the Hills hoist and the quarter-acre block, the Falcon will reach the end of the assembly line as one of the dominant names in world car history, with sales of over three million. The latest victim of Australia's Car Wars will live on for a while, no doubt, in garages, taxi ranks and police patrols. But its days are numbered, as Ford's Australian manufacturing operations follow those of Nissan in the early 1990s and Mitsubishi five years ago down the road to nowhere. The writing has been on the garage wall for years, with annual sales in free-fall from 54,000 to just 14,000 in the past decade. Australia's third biggest car maker has blown a financial gasket in the past five years, leaking $600 million. The company will maintain a staff of 1500 beyond 2016, and a network of 200 dealers, but said it was not viable to continue manufacturing in Australia where costs were twice as high as Europe and four times that of Asia. Others blamed the removal of tariffs over the past 30 years, the strong Australian dollar which makes imported cars cheaper, and the move to smaller cars. Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a $40 million assistance package for communities affected by Ford's decision. Unions are concerned about the flow-on effect on thousands of jobs in the car components industry, their worries underlined by Treasurer Wayne Swan's warning of more employment pressure in a changing economy. Ironically, Ford's grim move came a day after Holden announced plans for a new Commodore, with managing director Mike Devereux saying: "We are going to be in the top 10 again this year, so when people say Australians don't want large cars, I have no idea what they are talking about."