Hello to Ian, and The List:
It was common practise for companies to save on tooling costs by adapting
existing castings from say, farming, to automotive applications. This was
done in England --as noted in early Aston Martins (like the Ulster), Land
Rover (though an argument could be made that a LR *is* a tractor), TRs and
probably English Fords-- but also in Sweden by Volvo.
One of the most successful racing cars of the 50's was the Volvo 444/544
with their B-14 to B-18 engines. These blocks, too, started life as tractor
power. In the 60's, even the much-touted Coventry Climax engine, used to
great competition success by Lotus, began life as a lowly water pump for
fire service!
As an aside, the industrial production volume of these items probably kept
down the prototyping costs of our own cars; certainly this was the case with
the Sunbeam Alpine (and Tiger), as well as the Volvo 1800.
Cheers,
David Kellogg
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