50 Cents - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait - 08 - Ford XA Falcon Coupe

Part of the Royal Australian Mint's long-running classic Australian cars series, this issue commemorates the XA Falcon Coupe — the model Ford Australia introduced in 1972 to directly counter the Holden Monaro on the muscle car market. The XA was the first Falcon developed entirely in Australia without significant input from Ford's American or British divisions, a deliberate strategic shift after years of adapted overseas platforms.

The pad-printing technique applied to the coin's surface allowed color reproduction that conventional die-striking cannot achieve — a process the RAM began deploying seriously in the 2010s for collector issues requiring fine chromatic detail.