As well as offering a more luxurious interior trim with additional comfort and convenience features, for much of its first 25 years the Fairmont also offered a higher mechanical specification; a larger capacity engine and refinements such as disc brakes, power steering and automatic transmission that were extra cost options for the Falcon were fitted as standard equipment for the Fairmont.

The Fairmont has been through many incarnations since then, each one aligned with the contemporary Falcon series but usually with a better grade of interior and different exterior lights, front grille and other features.

According to the then Ford Australia head Tom Gorman, the model code FG was chosen as a 'nod to the Fairmont Ghia'.

In South Africa the XW and XY Ford Falcon series were assembled in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape from 1969 to 1972 and sold as Fairmonts.

These cars had the same specifications as the Australian Falcon GT, but with some cosmetic differences, the main ones being that the side stripes had the Supa-Roo replaced by a Supa-Rhino and the dashboard gauges were in metric format.