The idea of a four-door Mustang has tantalized fans of Ford's pony car for years. Google the words 'four-door Mustang' and you will be met with pages and pages of stories about the imminent arrival of a 'Stang for the whole family, breaking away from the model's traditional two-door sports car concept. It would make good sense on paper too. Who wouldn't want to keep rolling in a muscle car after they had children? The additional rear seats in a two-door muscle car are handy, but they aren't always the best option for driving a few hours, four-up, to the beach.But there was a reason that the Mustang remained a small, two-door vehicle. In the beginning, the Blue Oval Research Department did a lot of, er, research (what else would they do?) into the Mustang concept before the car was launched in 1964, asking young families with a child if they thought the car was practical enough. Many said no, but suddenly realized they could live with the car when told about its affordable price. The Research Team hit the nail on the head, and the car sold more than 400,000 units in the first year alone. But nowadays, times have changed, and the idea of a practical version of a well-loved sports car seems to work. Just look at the Porsche Panamera. Maybe we will see a four-door Mustang in the future after all?Or maybe it already exists, and we just haven't been looking in the right place. Ford did make a model that is as close to a 'Stang sedan as we are likely to see – it's just that Americans weren't allowed to buy it. That's a shame because it's a pretty wild offering from the Blue Oval.This article is subjective, and we cannot give a definitive answer as to why the model in question was not sold in the USA. Australia Went And Made A Mustang-Engined Sedan Collectingcars The first Australian-made Ford Falcon rolled off the production line in 1960. The Australian car scene can be viewed as very much like America's, just with more sand and the chance of seeing a koala. The Falcon started off as largely an American-style model, but from the '70s onwards, these hardy sedans and wagons became more engineered for the Australian market, with the US model being phased out. Wherever you are in 'Oz, you are just as likely to see a Falcon from any of the generations from 1960 to the final models in 2016, as you are a man in a sleeveless T-shirt talking about cricket and drinking a schooner outside the pub. That's to say, quite often. The Falcon reached its zenith with its inclusion in the Mad Max movies starring Mel Gibson, etching it into the country's culture as the modern equivalent to a horse to roam the wilderness. Ford Also Rolled Out Some Hot Falcons But while many Falcons serve as ways to traverse the Outback, or to go and get a few tinnies from the bottle-o, there have always been a few hot models. After all, Ford couldn't let its arch rival Holden run away with all the performance car sales with its fearsome Commodores. And this is where we find a model that, to all intents and purposes, gives us the best idea of what a four-door Mustang may have looked like if it had ever been built. The Falcon XR8 Is A Muscle Car In Sedan Clothing2016 Ford Falcon XR8 3Ford's Australian Falcon has always had some top-end performance models, notably, in modern times, in the form of the XR6 and XR8. The latter XR8 featured a Ford Windsor V8 in the '90s, with tuned suspension and upgraded brakes. The following Falcon model, which arrived in 1998, also received a 5.0-liter and 5.6-liter Windsor V8, making it a particular type of four-door Australian muscle car.The seventh-generation Falcon of 2008 would sadly be the last, but the performance models were getting serious now. For this range, the XR6 received a 4.0-liter inline-six unit, and the option of a turbocharged version with 362 horsepower. The XR8 has the 5.4-liter Boss engine from Ford's Modular Range with 389 horsepower. However, this model didn't last long, with the new Euro IV emissions regulations killing off the 5.4-liter engine. It was initially reported that the most muscular Falcon would get a 5.0-liter Coyote V8 straight from the Ford factory in Windsor, Canada, but this didn't happen – something better arrived. The Falcon Got A Supercharged V8 Instead2016 Ford Falcon XR8 4 Specs Ford Performance Vehicles, a collab between the US company and Prodrive, unleashed the Miami variant of the Coyote engine that appears in modern-day Mustangs. This 5.0-liter V8 shares the same block and crank as the Coyote, but everything from the wiring harness to the ECU to the oil sump has been upgraded in Australia, according to Fordauthority.com. The cherry on the cake is the fitment of a supercharger, with final assembly of this engine taking place at Ford Performance Vehicle’s Geelong engine plant in Victoria, Australia. The New Motor Was Wild Collectingcars While this new motor started out in the Ford Falcon-based FPV GT range, it was added to the reintroduced XR8 variant of the FG-X series Falcon in 2014. So what we had was a full-size Ford sedan running a supercharged version of a Mustang engine up front. It seems that even Ford may have even drawn parallels between the two at the time of launch.According to numerous reports at the time of the car's unveiling, the press release explained that the 2014 Falcon XR8 power dome now extends up to the windscreen cowl to deliver a stronger look, similar to that found on the S550 Mustang that was launched at the same time. "The strong family resemblance not only links Falcon to the new Mustang but highlights DNA shared with the new Mondeo, which joins the line-up in Australia next year," the release read. What's more, the XR8 can hit 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds, which was the same as that year's Mustang GT. The US Didn't Get Its Hands On This Old School Four-Door Muscle Sedan2016 Ford Falcon XR8 intriorIt was no surprise that the US didn't get the XR8. It was unlikely that the company would have pumped cash into bringing a niche model over from Australia, especially as it was being phased out in 2016 anyway. It's still a shame, because the Ford Falcon XR8, especially in the final high-performance Sprint version, was a proper old school muscle brute. Ironically, it could be argued (and those who drove both, actually did) that the XR8 was a bit too old school for its own good.The sixth-generation Mustang had by now dragged the pony car into a global automotive landscape, with fine dynamics and modern, capable handling, and everything you would expect from a contemporary sports car that was expected to compete against a Nissan 370Z. The XR8 was a wild 463-horsepower supercharged brute with an interior that looked like a taxi cab and underpinnings that dated back to the '90s. Maybe Ford's Mustang had moved on by this point, and those muscle car fans with two kids will have to wait and see whether an official four-door version will ever materialize.