For $25,000, Go Down - Under

Frustratingly, Australia has some wildly great cars that never make it to the US. Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Ford Falcon did make the trip however, and that means you don't have to get mad, you can get Mad Max.

Mount Panorama Circuit manages to pack 23 corners into a little under four miles of whoop-dee-doo street circuit. Challenging and venerated, you might know it better by the name it shares with its surrounding town – Bathurst. You could fill a very cool museum with all the cars that have tested their mettle (and metal) against its hilly sinew of asphalt, but the biggest badasses on the South Wales track were frequently those who grew up local.

One of those was the Australian built Ford Falcon. For years a localized version of the American Falcon, in '72 Ford Australia introduced a car that was also locally engineered. While the previous generations were compact in class and dimensions, the new Aussie stretched like the Outback to full-size status, and was designed to take on all the abuses Australia's punishing roads could dish out. Apparently it's not only the knives that are proportionally bigger down under, but also the pot holes, flash flood washouts and hordes of midi-fauna are super-sized as well.

All that required Australian cars to be especially robust, and pack stonkin' big V8s for plowing through Roo troops and evading the Bronze. This 1973 Ford Falcon XB Coupe is just one of those cars – and like Crocodile Dundee, it's made it all the way to the U S of A.

Crikey!

Looking vaguely like a native American, the early seventies Falcon XB shows its Oz roots by planting the driver on the right, and sporting an engine that's likely to go through petrol like its intended owner may have gone through cases of Victoria Bitters. Under its long, Torino-esque hood beats an engine straight outta' Cleveland, and that 4BBL 351 was claimed by the factory to be good for 300 roo-stomping horses. Others, unaffiliated with the factory, said it was more.

The seller doesn't say what transmission id backing up the Cleveland Show, but a gander at the interior shot in the ad leads one to believe it's Ford's three-speed automatic, a pretty standard fitment, and just how Mad Max liked his. The rest of the car is standard seventies technology – A-arms up front, live axle in back, and a disc/drum setup for when it's time to rein things in.

The gold and black stripes, along with the be-scooped hood indicate that car might have been treated to the Grand Sport Rally Pack upgrade when it was first ordered. That option also provides changes to the instrument cluster inside, but thankfully doesn't likely add much to the car's around 3,100-lb weight. Along with the gauges, the interior is fitted with a pair of vinyl bucket seats and a center console. Along the way someone has screwed on a wood-rimmed steering wheel, but otherwise it looks like any American Ford from the era, only in reverse. No claim is made for the condition inside, but it doesn't look in anyway tattered, while the seller does mention that there are a pair of dents on the fender outside, it overall looks to be in fine shape.

This Aussie is probably as common as cane toads back home, but here in America they're as rare as Wicked Weasels in Walmart, and as this one's a '73, it not only safely passes the Fed's age restrictions, but also California's more onerous requirements, and in fact, the seller lays claim to having titled the car in the Golden State successfully for the past 7 years.

But now, for whatever reason, he wants to be rid of the right-hander, despite how feakin' cool it presently is, and its ready ability to be painted flat black and turned into Mad Max's ultimate Interceptor. He also has a Falcon Ute up for grabs, more about that later this week. This one is the more original and in better shape, and possibly for that reason, his asking price is substantially higher than for the Ute – $25,000.

For the price of a nicely kitted brand new family sedan, you could have this awesome Aussie, which will make you BMOC at nearly any Ford gathering, and will make you also yearn for your own dingo as a traveling companion, and potentially to eat people's babies. What's your take on that price, does $25,000 for this Falcon make you want to shout, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi!? Or, does it just make you say, Oy vey!?

You decide!

Los Angeles Craigslist or go here if the ad disappears.

H/T to Slowlane for the hookup, mate!

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