It's too easy to speculate about all of this. We don't know the
correct answers and apparently no one asked the people who do know for a
first hand account.
According to Bob Mannel's book:
The 289 was first cast in Dec 1962; this is part of the 1963 Ford model year
The Fairlane 289 HiPo was introduced in Dec 1962
I believe both of these engines were still in the development stage;
some of the internal parts were not up to racing standards. I believe it
took most of the next year to sort things out but it is not totally clear
when these improvements actually happened.
I also believe that FoMoCo was calling the shots about who got which
engine and when. Ford was supporting multiple racing teams including
Shelby American and Ford carried a very big stick. Ford wanted to dominate
at the race track.
Ron Fraser
-----Original Message-----
From: tigers-bounces@autox.team.net [mailto:tigers-bounces@autox.team.net]
On Behalf Of rande
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 7:13 AM
To: tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: [Tigers] More cubes for Tiger
Shelby gets blamed for a few things, rightly or wrongly, concerning the
Tiger race car performance, but I think he's probably in the clear
concerning why Rootes decided to buy 260's.
My hunch is that Ford made them a compelling offer for the 260, so that Ford
could spread out production costs before switching entirely over to the 289.
As far as availability, you could have a 1963 Ford Galaxie with a C motor
(289-2V), so it's not that they weren't making them in 1964. The K motor
(289-4V 271hp) wasn't available in production for Mustang until the Fall
1964, and it probably would have tipped the cost of a Tiger very close to
Corvette(I remember a close-out 1964 Sting Ray coupe in a showroom for
$3500). And finally, as Michael King mentioned, there was the
dealer-available option,over the counter or dealer-installed of 245hp if
164hp didn't do enough for an owner.
Also, in a couple of books written about early Cobra's, there was mention of
Cobra 260 owners bringing their cars back to Ol'Shel to swap for 289's. I
wonder how many Tiger owners thought to do the same thing when they learned
what Cobra owners were doing?
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