It might look like a lightly shrunken Mercury Montego wearing Valiant Charger headlights, but the Ford Cortina had nothing to do with a midsize Ford…it was just meant to look like one. Offered up as an economy car with looks, the Cortina (this one being a third-generation 1970-76 version) would have, at best, one of the two inline-sixes from the Ford Falcon from a powerplant. That won’t do, especially with the kind of power later-model mills can push out, but Ford makes a killer replacement for the Falcon six that is easily found: the turbocharged “Barra” 4.0L that is found in all sorts of Fords…in Australia, of course, because we sure didn’t get a six that wicked in the States! Able to take tons of boost, you can rip one of these mills out of just about any late-model Aussie Ford, and with a tweak here and some work there, stuff one into a much lighter Cortina and proceed to have as much fun as possible. Who cares what it sounds like when it does such a good job? We don’t!