bosses70, on 12 March 2012 - 12:13 PM, said:
Most Ford fans are not gullible. We fully understand that the Ford Motor Company is a sponsor of JFR and that the motors, bodies, etc. are custom built/fabricated pieces, and yes the engine design does emulate the "old" Chrysler Hemi design. Somewhat similar to the NASCAR cars of today, the certainly are not "stock" cars. I for one, am proud of the Ford sponsorship of JFR as it brings back memories from the Ford racing accomplishments of the 1960's; Lemans, Trans AM, SCCA, Cobra Jet - NHRA etc.. I am also proud of the fact that Ford remains a strong company that continues to support many forms of racing and is about to introduce a 650 HP street car. I too admire Chrysler and GM, but let's face it, they have not weathered the storm in the same manner as Ford. Both actually went bankrupt, one now owned by Fiat and the other still with a significant interest held by the US Government.
Yes, I believe they are and it has nothing to do with financial problems; mostly the involvement in racing. In most nearly all of Ford claims they had little or nothing to do with the key elements that decided the race outcome.
In some way Ford has sullied every form of motorsports they have ever been involved with; examples follow.
In the highly lauded 1901 race (and only race Henry ever ran) between Henry and Winton, the Ford account indicates that it was billed and promoted as a race between only these two and drew a crowd of many thousand spectators. The truth is that it was promoted as a race among some 16 different auto manufacturers and at that time Henry was not one, his previous attempts having failed. My guess is that Henry heard about it and showed up with his car, hoping to get in the race. There were several preliminary or heat races before the main event that Henry did not race in, and many of the cars in the heats were damaged or had mechanical problems so that only three, including Henry’s appeared for the main event. One of the three dropped out, leaving Henry and Winton, and due to the extra time the heats had taken the main was shortened from 25 to 10 laps. Henry won the 10 lap event when the Winton car had engine problems.
In the Ford account it is mentioned that Henry's car ignition was the forerunner of today's spark plugs, but we know that Lenoir's engine of 1861 was spark ignited. Also, they claim that Henry's car set the stage for the Porsche due to its lightweight construction.
Take a look at what happened in Nascar.
In 1957, a young boy spectator was killed during a NASCAR race wreck and shortly the AMA, Chrysler, Ford, and GM all agreed on a self imposed exile which lasted until 1962, when Ford announced, "We're back into racing." If you believe Ford has been sitting on their hands all this time and not preparing for this comeback then your first name has got to be Edsel. Chrysler came back shortly, but GM/Chevy stayed out for several years. In an 8 year span Ford won 173 races to Chevy's 15. But fordracing.com doesn't tell us this. During this 8 year span, Ford drivers won their first ever championship. And remember the much ballyhooed Flathead V-8 won only 1 race while the lowly regarded 6 cylinder Plymouth won 10.
The Ford win at Le Mans.
In the late sixties, Ford laid claim to victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans after previous unsuccessful attempts using a moderate size 289 engine which they had copied from the small block Chevy. After the failed attempts, Ford reached in their storehouse of ingenuity and pulled out their best weapon; the oversized, big block 400 plus cu. in. monster, 3 1/2 times as large as the runner-up competition, with all the performance characteristics of a tractor engine, and won it easy enough.
Ford and Force in NHRA.
Here's a direct quote from John: "We can show just how much muscle Ford packs into the 7,000-horsepower Castrol GTX Ford Mustang Funny Car engine. Since 1997, Ford has been an essential part of John Force Racing. I am pleased and honored that we can bring my hot rod to the LA Auto Show and highlight Ford Racing's success." But John, it’s a Chrysler, not Ford engine, but the Ford sheep believe.
The Cosworth scam.
THE FORD COSWORTH STORY By Steffen Schulz
Founder and owner of the Northampton based company for racing engines` technology were the British engineers Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth. The former Lotus employèes had founded Cosworth - the name of the company is taken from parts of their names - in the year 1958. Duckworth had been in the leading position in running the firm.
They had begun with a single engine test stand. Even since 1959 there had been a relationship with the Ford Motor Company. Cosworth designed a light engine for the Ford Anglia. As the consequence Cosworth gave further development to that engine and became very successful in the lower categories like the Formula Junior.
The great boom came in 1967, after Cosworth had been given the order by Ford to construct a small, powerful Formula One normally-aspirated engine for Lotus. Ford had noticed the performance and the successes of the Cosworth designs so far. But the man taking the initiative was Colin Chapman of Lotus, who first took B.R.M. engines as an intermediate solution, but was in the need for a lighter design. At the beginning of the year 1966 Chapman discussed his wishes and ideas with the vicepresident of Ford Europe, Walter Hayes, having a fine dinner. One month later Hayes was able to convince Henry Ford II of the Formula One involvement at their Detroit headquarters and in spite Ford had constructed racing engines of their own in the USA, the Americans did not want to be involved in such an adventure in Europe. A contract was signed with the small but rising British engine company that should construct the engine under their own responsibility, only a few plans were given. The cooperation was not intended only for Formula One but also for other racing categories. The contract came into force on 1st March and 4 points stood in the centre of it. Ford paid the sum of £ 100.000 to Cosworth for the technical development. In return for that Cosworth had to design and to build engines for Formula 1 and Formula 2 under the name of Ford. The F2 engine should have 4 cylinders in a row using that one of the Ford Cortina as it`s base. The Formula 1 engine should be a 90° V8 of 3000 ccm with 4 valves per cylinder and a cylinder head made out of light metal. The engine should be ready for it`s first racing appearance in May 1967. Ford would take over the engine to give it to a team they have chosen.
How the Indy 500 started to become a yawner which no one cares about.
The Ford people just could not stand the name FORD not being connected with a 500 win even though the Chevrolet brothers had won it two years in a row using discarded Model Ts renamed Frontenac. This link tells of the start of the sickening of the 500.
http://www.allameric.../dino/case.html
How Ford won the first ever NHRA national championship.
The History of Clifford Performance
Before founding Clifford Research in 1967, Jack Clifford raced a 1954 Hudson 308 flat-head 6 cylinder and became undefeated NHRA L/S champion in 1963.
The reason Jack chose a flat-head 6 was that Hudson Hornets started NASCAR racing back in the early 1950s at Daytona Beach, Florida. The Hudson flat-head 6 cylinder outperformed all overhead V-8s including Chrysler hemis in 1954, taking 27 out of 29 grand national races. Hudson then merged with Nash and that was the last of the champion 6s.
In 1963 Jack saw the potential of the 6 cylinder engine over V-8s in the stock NHRA drag classes. His Hornet powered Hudson won the L/Stock class at the Winternationals with a speed of 85.65 mph and e.t. of 15.77, a record that held for ten years until the class was outlawed. Amazingly, all of Jack's NHRA races were done BEFORE HEADERS, and all engines were PURE STOCK!
In 1964, while working as a mechanical engineer for North American Aerospace Division assigned to the Apollo Project, Ford Motor Sports Division hired Jack to beat the Chevaire race team. They were using a Chevy 327 V-8 wagon. The intention was to beat out the stock car manufacturers award at the NHRA world cup meet in Columbus, Ohio. Ford flew Jack and towed his 1954 "Hornet" powered 6 cylinder car to the meet. Ford knew they could not beat the Chevy race team without Jack's help since he held the class record too. His 6 cylinder flat-head blew the doors off the 327 V-8 Chevy by two full car lengths which allowed Ford to be #1 in the manufacturer's class. This really showed the possibilities of what a 6 cylinder flat-head could do, so by 1967 Jack made new history by using OHV sixes to go too
If the above was not enough take a look at this latest indulgence in using other peoples engineering and ingenuity and claiming it to be theirs.
http://www.thehemi.c...be4c378d24481df
Last but not least:
http://www.traces.org/henryford.html
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Posted 23 June 2010 - 12:46 PM
Quality certainly was not the issue in the first bankruptcy. Poor management was.And all of the big three have suffered through that at one time or another. I was able to speak with one of the very few VP's at Chrysler after Iaccoca came in. He told several great stories, few that I remember but, apparently, when Lee came in, the was a mass exodous of VP's from 26 to 2 if I remember correctly. Now dont quote this story with numbers that are accurate but the premis is right on. When asked how many K-cars could be produced in a period of time, the plants reported they could make X ammount. Apparently Lee's response surprised them all when he said, ok but you better damn not make one more than that. I have driven both Dodge products and GM along with my Fords. IMHO, Chrysler quality is underated and in fact, I thought, very good. GM, no so much. I drove a friends 8 month old Chevy truck and it had more rattles than my knees (Im gettin older too!) and I was surprised how poor it was put together. 
