Landau - LTD appeal

A TWO-DOOR LTD SOUNDED GREAT IN THEORY; THE EXECUTION TOOK CARE OF ITSELF… 

- MICHAEL STAHL

THIS MONTH marks 50 years since the launch of Australia's first locally designed luxury car, the Ford LTD. That makes it also the 50th anniversary of Australia's shortest-lived, least-produced and least-acknowledged production car - the LTD's two-door sister, the Ford Landau.

It's ironic that the Landau was the brainchild of Ford Australia Managing Director and marketing legend Bill Bourke. Just a few years earlier, it had been Bourke's idea to make a high-performance GT four-door Falcon, at a time when 'GT' everywhere else in the world meant a two-door coupe.

The XR GT of 1967 and subsequent Falcon GT series, which added a two-door coupe in August 1972, put Aussie muscle on the global map.