Ford Landau: The 1966 Ford’s Long And Curious Second Life In Brazil

Brochure image of a black Brazilian Ford Landau sedan

Quite a few obsolete American cars (and engines) found their way to South and Latin America, for a second chance at life, and to be appreciated in ways that they were not in their first lives. We’ll list links to most of them at the end, but today we’ll ponder the somewhat unexpected second life of the 1966 Ford in Brazil, including the Laundau version that was built all the way through 1983.

Both the Brazilian LTD and Landau got numerous updates and changes to their front and rear ends, so dating them precisely is a bit of a challenge, but this one is from around 1980 or so.

The tooling for the 1966 full-size Ford Galaxie 500 was sent to Brazil and built there starting in 1967 with no obvious external differences, as a large luxury sedan. The big difference was under the hood, where the obsolete Y block V8 resided instead of the “Windsor” small block V8 or one of the FE V8s. According to automobile-catalog, the initial version in the ’67 was the 272 cubic inch version (4453 cc) rated at 166PS/164 gross SAE hp. That’s pretty modest by US standards of the time, but in Brazil that was unusually large and quite powerful.

In 1969, the LTD version was introduced, with the obligatory vinyl roof and a standard automatic transmission. For 1970, the larger 292 cubic inch version of the Y block with 190PS/193 gross hp replaced the 272.

ford-br-landau-front-end

Only one year later, the Landau arrived — essentially replacing the LTD — as the Lincoln of Fords in Brazil.  It started out its second life in Brazil with its original stacked headlights intact, but with some rather creative remodeling of the grille.

Here’s a 1973 Landau, shot by CC reader Alberto Simon. The hood ornament is not original. Some obvious Lincoln styling themes have worked their way into the front end.

The rear end shows the changes made there too, squaring it off some and with high-mounted taillights.

Alberto also shot this 1973 Galaxie 500, which shares the new peaked hood of the Landau but a simpler grille.

Here it is from the side and rear.

This is a somewhat better shot of the front end, this being a 1975 model.

The rear end styling continued to evolve; I’m not sure of the exact year of this one, but 1974-1975 is my guess.

1976 brought the first significant changes, both in styling and under the hood. The front end now had horizontal headlights and a more modern design. And the venerable Y block was now replaced by the familiar 302 cubic inch (4.9 L) “Windsor” V8, rated at 196PS/199 gross SAE hp.

This Landau dating from 1980 or a bit later shot also by Simon shows the cleaned up rear end. It lost its door handles more recently.

Landau production was always very modest, given its role as Brazil’s biggest luxury car, and peaked in 1976 with 5556 units sold. The second energy crisis really hit it hard, and in 1979, Ford engineered a version to run on alcohol, which was a very popular alternate fuel in Brazil for some years, given its ability to make it from abundant sugar cane. In it last year, 1983, there were 93 gasoline-powered and 32 ethanol-powered Landaus built.

ford-br-landau-color

This is what the world would be like without planned obsolescence. Does this Landau really look any worse than a 1983 Ford LTD? Not in my book.

 

Two significantly shorter and less detailed posts on the Brazilian Landau were posted here in 2017 and here in 2020.

 

Here’s some links to other cars that got a second life in South America:

Curbside Classic: 1971 IKA Torino TS – The Legendary Rambler European South American by PN

CC Global: The Near-Immortal Ford Falcon of Argentina by PN

CC Global: Brazilian Maverick – From Deception to Passion by Rubens

CC Global: Argentine Ford Fairlane With 292 V8 – The Y-Block Gets A High-Performance Second Act In Argentina by PN

Curbside Classic: 1971 VW 1600 TL – Turns Out The Brazilian Type 3 Isn’t Really A Type 3; It’s the EA97 Reincarnated by PN

CC Global: The Brazilian Dodge Dart/Charger – Genuine Mopar V8 This Time Around by Rubens

Automotive History: Simca Chambord, Brazil’s First V8 – From Ford Flathead To Hemihead by Rubens

Curbside Classico do Brasil: Ford Maverick GT by R. Kim

Cohort Outtake: Ford Del Rey – What’s Hiding Under The Ford Overcoat? by PN