Aussie Road Warrior – 1973 Ford Landau

Some of you out there (non-Ford lovers that is) might not be aware of what a 1973 Ford Landau actually is.
Well here you go, in 1973 a limited production of only 1385 vehicles were made based on the XB Falcon Series. The Landau was basically ‘the top notch version‘ of the coupe, it had everything you could possibly have in the 70’s – the only options you could order for this vehicle was a cassette deck and leather trim, when Davids Landau rolled off the production line it had both. When cars were rolling off the production line in the 70’s you could order them in basically any configuration you wanted except when it came to the Landau!

Back in 2001 David Mitchell purchased this in his words ”Original , Untouched , very rusty and neglected car”, he had found a rare piece of Australian Ford motoring history. Since being in his possession for the last 15 years, David has given it a new lease on life.

The past 5 years have been a busy time for David and his car, at first like most builds, it was only going to be a minor rebuild. Well that soon went out the window and a long came a new super tough power plant consisting of a stroked 351 pushing the cubes out to 383 cubic inches of Ford Muscle, with alloy heads, 11.2 comp, a 830 Holley carb and crane ignition. This combo throws out 420 angry ponnies to the rear wheels. The Landau also received a new lick of Stratoshepre Grey wich is the original colour for this car that specific grey was only brought out on the Landau and the LTD.

…some other prick got their hands on it and filled the car with bog and after only 6 months started to fall apart, conveniently they disappeared shortly after the job was done…

“After the first respray ended up being a disaster, I found Brendan at Classic Cars, he started from scratch stripping the car back to basic. Repairing all of
the dodgy repairs the last idiot did completed the engine build and was a huge force behind getting the car to where it is today”.

…I took out Runner Up for the best Coupe at the all Ford Day Geelong in 2008…

The car was built to be a tough cruiser but let me tell you with that angry stroker under the hood it is no slouch at the track, so far Davids PB is a 12.2 @ 117 mph. Transfering the power from the stroker is a C6 Auto with a 3800 stally. With the ever trusty Ford 9” spreading the power out to the bags via a set of 3.7 locked gears. To give the Landau that ultra tuff look she received a set of nice fat Convo Pro’s with a set of 295’s tucked under the rear guards, you can tell straight away this car means business. Perched prominently on the bonnet is an ultra tough Torino Shaker.

“Other than the drama with the first paint job the build went surprisingly trouble free. I have had a few little problems here and there she chewed up a few fuel pumps but nothing really major has gone wrong touch wood”

What’s Next? “When the car was built it did have leather trim, i would like to go back to Leather but as always with cars the budget blew out so that can wait for a little while”.

ENGINE Specification
Make : 351 stroked to 383
Carbie : Holley 830
Heads : Alloy
Ignition : Crane
Exhaust : Twin 2.5”
Comp : 11.2
Power : 600 + Est Fly Wheel HP
Performance : 12.2 @ 117mph