King Cusso

The Falcon XR GT in 1967 is widely credited as the first Aussie muscle car. But back in the 1950s there'd been an earlier model Ford muscle car that forged a name for itself in racing and rallying - and it even set new land speed records.

Story: James Cockington

The October 1953 edition of Wheels magazine (the sixth ever produced) was the first to show what we now call a muscle car on the cover. Bill McLachlan is seen testing his Ford Customline V8 near Heathcote, outside Sydney. Wild Bill, as the magazine described him, was one of several Customline drivers to take part in the first Redex Reliability Trial. He was leading into Brisbane before falling back due to mechanical problems.

This event, and the other Round Australia trials that followed, proved that production cars were tough and, in the case of the Cusso, exciting to watch. An estimated 150,000 spectators lined the Pacific Highway as the cars headed north.

The Grey Ghost

A Peugeot 203 won the first Redex Trial but Jack Murray won the next year’s event in his famous Ford Mercury, a former taxi he nicknamed the Grey Ghost. According to various versions it was a 1946 or 1947 model. It was the only V8 to win a Round Australia trial and the man they called Gelignite did it in style. He won the 1954 event without losing a single point.

LUKEY’S LAND SPEED CUSSO

Meanwhile in Melbourne, Len Lukey’s Customline reigned supreme.

Lukey’s sky blue 1955 model, with engine modified by hotshot Harry Firth, recorded fastest time for a sedan over the measured quarter mile at Orange in January 1956. Top speed was 106.6 mph.

In September 1957 the car was updated with current model bodywork and some temporary streamlining and set an Australian land speed record of 123.3 mph at the Tipperary ‘Flying Mile’ Speed Tests on a stretch of public road near Coonabarabran. This speed was the average of two passes in opposite directions. His top speed that day was a staggering 130 mph.

He had some wind assistance, but that’s not bad for a car that was still used as daily transport. On this occasion the Customline was used to tow Lukey’s other car, a Cooper Bristol single-seater, to the location.

The Cusso was streamlined for the record attempt by Lukey who picked up some ideas from a book. As one reporter described it, “it was pale blue where it wasn’t covered with tape or streamlining and it was a frightening thing just idling at the side of the road.”

The famous Customline was later restored to street condition and displayed at the Len Lukey Memorial Museum at Phillip Island.

If there was one Cusso more famous than Lukey’s it would have to be Slim Dusty’s. From 1958 onwards Slim, his family and his band followed the Australian sideshow circuit in a Customline and a Fargo van, both pulling caravans. He tells how he found the car in his autobiography, Walk A Country Mile.

“We were walking down from Kings Cross when I spotted an outrageously lairy red, white and blue Ford Customline in a showroom window.

‘Is the red, white and blue one still for sale?’ I asked the salesman.

‘It’s been up for sale for six months,’ he said sadly. ‘And it’ll be there another six months. How could the idiots at head office give me something like that to unload? What sort of mug would buy a car like that. You wouldn’t be seen dead in it.’

I liked his sales pitch so I bought it.”