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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