Chris Gobbo has fond memories of the Mk2 Cortina he owned when he was a younger. “I had all the big dreams for it, but I didn’t have the money for it as an apprentice,” he recalls. Eventually, he sold the Corty and bought an HZ Holden, which he V8-swapped as his financial situation improved. He also married his girlfriend Angela. 

First published in the July 2026 issue of Street Machine

But Chris never forgot about that Cortina. So, when he and Angela moved north of Adelaide and stumbled across a Mk1 Cortina for sale less than 20 minutes from their new house, they decided to dive head-first into their first full car build. 

“I showed Angela, and she fell in love,” Chris says. “We both have a soft spot for Mk1 Cortinas, so we figured why not go and have a look.” But they quickly discovered they’d taken on a job they weren’t quite ready for.

“We had next to no experience with any of the work that needed to be done,” Chris reckons. “At first, the plan was to farm the build out, but once we had gotten some prices, we realised that wasn’t going to work, so we decided to do as much as possible ourselves.”

Now, anyone who’s built or restored a car from the ground up knows what a big job it is, so taking on the task with no real knowledge of how to get it done is pretty wild.

“The first big issue was that I’m a tiler, not a fabricator,” Chris laughs. “It took a bit of practice and some redos to get things right. I’d never touched a spray gun or a sanding block in my life, so it was a steep learning curve, but I’ve got an uncle who’s owned a panel shop, so he gave me a fair few pointers with the bodywork and things like that.”

All too often, when a first-time builder begins to realise the trouble they’ve got themselves into, the car build will stagnate and end up being sold off as an unfinished project, but Chris and Angela stuck with it. In fact, Angela was just as heavily involved in the build process as Chris – after all, this is her car. “Yeah, she’s got the disease as well,” Chris says. “The Cortina was meant to be just a bit of a cruiser, but it sort of snowballed out of control.”

Ultimately, the pair removed the rust, smoothed out all the metal, and, after masking off half the home garage, painted the Corty in Protec Nebula Green – a colour usually found on FJ40 LandCruisers. It looks right at home on the compact 60s sedan.

Chris and Angela’s initial plan was to hop up the four-cylinder, but when they worked out how much that would cost to make any decent power, they decided to bolt in a little V8 instead. Con Nikopoulos from Competition Automotive Dyno Centre owned a V8-powered early Cortina back in the day, and he was a great source of information and encouragement for Chris. Con suggested a 302 Windsor, so Chris grabbed one to build up for the diminutive Ford.

“This car probably wouldn’t have happened without Con underselling how much of a task it was to convert one of these cars to V8,” Chris laughs.

Once he was elbows-deep into the engine, Chris had no choice but to see it through. After boring and honing the block out 60thou, he fitted domed Icon forged pistons and Scat I-beam rods to a factory-stroke crank. Con had a solid flat-tappet cam lying around that he gave Chris to install, before they topped the cylinders with a pair of DRP alloy heads. With an Edelbrock RPM Air Gap intake and a Quick Fuel 750cfm carb, the 302 makes around 420hp at 6400rpm. In this day and age, that might not sound like a lot, but in a pint-sized Cortina, that kind of power equates to a whole heap of fun.

Backing up the 302 is a built C10 transmission with a spicy 4700rpm converter, and a shortened M86 diff from an XR6 Turbo ute. 

When Chris and Angela first finished the car, the rear end retained the factory-style leaf springs, but when they decided to upgrade from the classic Minilite-style wheels to the MaxWheel billets the Corty now wears, Chris knew more room was needed under the bum. So, using the fabrication skills he’d learned over the course of the build, he mini-tubbed the rear end before installing a four-link suspended off double-adjustable coil-overs, with a Panhard bar to locate the whole deal. The rear tyres may only be 245/50R15 on a set of 8in-wide rims, but under the tiny Cortina, they look pretty girthy.

Now that the body, paint and driveline were sorted, all that was left was the interior, and here Chris and Angela went with basic black vinyl over a pair of Mk2 Cortina bucket seats and trims, with a four-gauge GT cluster added to the centre of the dash. A vintage MOMO wood-rimmed wheel and an Aeroflow shifter round out the interior, but don’t go looking for a stereo.

“There was really no room, and we didn’t want to butcher the dash,” Chris says. “In all honesty, you can’t hear shit – the car is pretty loud with a 3.5-inch system. We ended up putting a second muffler on there, but it’s still pretty obnoxious. We’d rather have a loud car than a boring car.”

Truer words have never been spoken, because there’s nothing boring about this little green monster, which has already gone 11.5 seconds down the quarter at The Bend. “And that was before the new converter went in it,” Chris says. “With the bigger converter and the double-adjustable shocks, I mean to get the best out of it.”

The arrival of their baby boy about 15 months ago and the lack of mounting points for a baby seat has put a bit of a dent in how often Chris and Angela get to cruise in the Cortina these days, but they’re keen to get the V8 Ford back to Tailem Bend.

“My wife is really looking forward to getting it back out on the track,” Chris says. “She’s only raced it that one time we took it out. The goal one day is to take both the HZ and the Cortina down and race each other on the same day, but we’ll probably have to wait until the little one is a bit older.”

Well, we reckon don’t wait too long, otherwise the young bloke just might want to steal the keys to Mum’s car. 

CHRIS & ANGELA GOBBO
1965 FORD CORTINA Mk1

THANKS

Con Nikopoulos at Competition Automotive Dyno Centre; Angelo; Bob; Daniel Obst; Tony Knight; Sot at Speed Garage & MVE; Ryan at Advance Headers; Uncle Arthur; Aaron O’Hara; my wife Angela