A little FE Shelby GT-500 respect

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^^^^ and some. The 427 FE the engine that made Chrysler cry to ban it, firstly with the high riser, then the Cammer, but when when the Hemi got banned, even though it wasn't a factory fitted engine in 64, they cried and sat out of NASCAR for a year. At least Ford found a way around the problems, ie: the 427 medium riser.

That Stang is and sounds tough as, I wouldn't say no to it.

 
Since you are a member of this site, it would be safe to say that most of us are certifiably car crazy at some level. If you have never driven or rode in a FE 427 powered Ford, you MUST add it to your "Bucket" list. Being raised in a Ford family and having worked at a Ford dealer for 30+ years put me in contact with a lot of Ford fanatics. A lot of my friends had some "Heavy Hitters". 69 Boss 429 Mustang, 70 Cyclone SCJ 429, Boss 351, and a lot of 428 powered Torino's and Mustang's. But the one that stands out above all is Harry's 67 Fairlane 427 with two 4bl carburetors. The acceleration that feels like your eyes are being pushed out the back of your head and the sound of that engine is unreal. You'll have a permanent grin on your face and everyone you know will be smoking an "After" cigarette!!

 
The sound of a 427 R code is just awsome. The Bowden collection has Lex Davison's old 63 4door (had to use a 4 door for rule eligibility back then) R code Gal, still with its Holman Moody prepared 427 in it. The sound of that thing was just amazing and the way it shook the ground was just unbelievable. I actually use to have that as my ring tone on a phone a few years ago (plus their old genuine GT40 as my SMS alert) should've transferred them over to my later phones, oh well.

 
Our local Ford dealer was the distribution center for the Ford racing stuff back in the 60's and 70's. You could see rows of 427 engines on the pallet back then. I got them to give me their old parts books and price lists even got the Shelby ones. I think a H&M 427 ready for the track was just a little over $2,000. A local guy got one of the SOHC engines with single 4 and 2-4 manifolds. He kept if for years but probably sold it 15 years ago. A cousin had 3 NOS side oiler blocks I have to see if he still has them. Another friend has the Factory 3-2 manifold and heads for FE. Lots of that stuff was here at one time there were several of the NASCAR shop local to here. I remember working in Roger Ingram's shop in Asheville he would help some of the low buck racers out. We actually brazed the thrust bearing web back in a 427 for Cecil Gordon. He could not afford a new one. He cut pulp wood for a living but was at every NASCAR race back in the 60's. Try to do that now. Sucks how the rich take everything away from the poor guy. Racing was a poor guys sport years ago.

Attached a some pics of a Mercury I saw at the Mustang Memories in Dearborn a few weeks back. There were several Galaxies with 427 there. Back in the 70's you could pick up the 427 cars for under $1,000. A local guy Jerry Mason has rows of them in his garage even a Thunder Bolt. His dad worked for Bud Moore in Spartanburg so knew everyone that had them.

Never again for sure.

David

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David you guys over there in the U.S. had it good back then, just walk on in to your local dealer and get get some Hi-Po stuff or complete engine, go home, bolt it in or on and go racing. Just walking into a dealer seeing all that stuff would've been amazing, but back then it was just spare parts that a dealer sold. Over here in Australia, our dealers sold some stuff (mainly small block stuff as that's all we had in our cars from factory) but nowhere even close to what you guys had over there. I know exactly what you are saying about the rich and Motorsport. The rich has always been involved with Motorsport, but tin tops were the working people's race cars and this is why its popularity exploded, as it was these cars that a majority of fans could relate too. Even here in Australia the average bloke could go racing, he mightn't had the best stuff or been the fastest, but he could give it a go and some of the little guys would upset the big guys on their home tracks. I've worked with some guys that were crewing for some of these little guys back in the 60's (and two with bigger factory outfits) and the stories they would tell were quite amazing what they could do with no money, sleeping in cars, buying used parts from the bigger guys and so on.

The thing that killed Motorsport for the average guy was the withdrawal of the factories. When they were involved with the sport, just about anybody could go down to their local parts place, get factory quality proven Hi-Po parts and go racing, geez they even had tech workshops that would come to the dealers and show the people what the latest parts were and also how to set up your Hi-Po gear to get the most out of it. After the factories shut down their racing programs, that all died and it was left to the aftermarket companies to fill the void. It was then that the price of everything performance related jumped, leaving to little guy to really struggle to try and keep going, or stop racing all together. Unfortunately, those good old days are long gone and will never, ever return.

 
The thing that killed Motorsport for the average guy was the withdrawal of the factories. When they were involved with the sport, just about anybody could go down to their local parts place, get factory quality proven Hi-Po parts and go racing, geez they even had tech workshops that would come to the dealers and show the people what the latest parts were and also how to set up your Hi-Po gear to get the most out of it. After the factories shut down their racing programs, that all died and it was left to the aftermarket companies to fill the void. It was then that the price of everything performance related jumped, leaving to little guy to really struggle to try and keep going, or stop racing all together. Unfortunately, those good old days are long gone and will never, ever return.
I bought my first performance car in 1973, just as the factories were getting out of HI Perf stuff but the aftermarket exploded to fill the void. Some of it was junk but Scheifer, Hurst, Crane, Holley, Edelbrock, Hooker, Mallory and others filled the needs of those wanting more from their cars. Ford produced the coolest stuff but not much ended up on cars I encountered on the street. When you consider inflation a lot of it has been pretty constant in terms of true cost.

I think we're reliving the good old days right now (at least here in the States). Depending who you believe, US inflation is 500-1000 percent since I bought my first V8. A new Super T 10 cost about $375 when I was making $3.25 and hour. Now a T56 is about $3K. In 1969 Chevy sold two aluminum engine Corvettes. At about 10K Chevy felt there was no market Stingrays with tons of power at double the price of a base model. In 2015 Chevy sold about 9000 Z06 Corvettes (80-120K) with 650 HP. A friend bought a '15 GT Mustang, new for $29K, a real performance bargain. Shelby's can be had with as much HP as the wallet can stand. I do expect this to all end just like in 1971/72 due to the same reasons, government regulation, fuel and insurance cost.

 
The thing that killed Motorsport for the average guy was the withdrawal of the factories. When they were involved with the sport, just about anybody could go down to their local parts place, get factory quality proven Hi-Po parts and go racing, geez they even had tech workshops that would come to the dealers and show the people what the latest parts were and also how to set up your Hi-Po gear to get the most out of it. After the factories shut down their racing programs, that all died and it was left to the aftermarket companies to fill the void. It was then that the price of everything performance related jumped, leaving to little guy to really struggle to try and keep going, or stop racing all together. Unfortunately, those good old days are long gone and will never, ever return.
I bought my first performance car in 1973, just as the factories were getting out of HI Perf stuff but the aftermarket exploded to fill the void. Some of it was junk but Scheifer, Hurst, Crane, Holley, Edelbrock, Hooker, Mallory and others filled the needs of those wanting more from their cars. Ford produced the coolest stuff but not much ended up on cars I encountered on the street. When you consider inflation a lot of it has been pretty constant in terms of true cost.

I think we're reliving the good old days right now (at least here in the States). Depending who you believe, US inflation is 500-1000 percent since I bought my first V8. A new Super T 10 cost about $375 when I was making $3.25 and hour. Now a T56 is about $3K. In 1969 Chevy sold two aluminum engine Corvettes. At about 10K Chevy felt there was no market Stingrays with tons of power at double the price of a base model. In 2015 Chevy sold about 9000 Z06 Corvettes (80-120K) with 650 HP. A friend bought a '15 GT Mustang, new for $29K, a real performance bargain. Shelby's can be had with as much HP as the wallet can stand. I do expect this to all end just like in 1971/72 due to the same reasons, government regulation, fuel and insurance cost.
Sic I agree hp has never been cheaper than now. Our conversion rate has killed things a bit here but the last 5 yrs have been very good parts wise and in advances in technology. Its been a bit of a golden age for you guys in the USA with the factories delivering some very impressive cars Shelbys from Ford HellCats from Dodge even COPO cars from Chevy again all at very reasonable money respectively. We have none of the big 3 offering anything near those cars and what we have that is close is far more expensive and much tamer. The clock has to be ticking it surely wont last much longer unfortunately

 
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I hear everyone talking about how great the prices are but I just do not see it. I bought new cars in 71 with two year financing and again in 73 with 18 months. I could not afford to get top end and finance like that now.

I worked with the automotive world for 25 years as a tooling engineer and the last year was in China so I know what they pay for tooling and parts. So many of the cars have had the parts count reduced over the years reducing the costs even with inflation. The expense of the high cost of Union labor has been drastically reduced due to automation. The manufacturing of things like engines and transmissions is like aliens came down and showed them how to do it. Very little human content. The machines do not have unions, health care, vacations, sick days and don't come in on Monday with a hang over. They do the same day after day.

The tooling use to take thousands of men working for high wages to crank out the dies to stamp the parts and molds to produce the plastic and zinc and aluminum die cast tooling for hard parts. Today a geek can set behind a monitor and design the part, build the tooling around the part and generate the CNC cutter path and never break a sweat. The material is ordered and a computer driven saw cuts the material and a CNC mill squares it up. It goes to another CNC and the details are machined, Heat treat and then hard cut and very little hand work and you have a die. To make the huge cast tools for like body sides, hoods, fenders and such a CNC cuts the Styrofoam making the casting patterns and the tools are cast. Then to a CNC for machining and then a little hand work. It use to take a full year or more to do the tooling now it can be done in weeks if needed. The cost of the tooling is less now than in the 70's. The amount of labor in the car is less than in the 70's. The amount of design man power is less. The only thing that did go up was materials and that is not that much. A full body ready to go to paint cost Ford under $1,000 for any vehicle they make. A Mustang is probably $800 or less.

I have a son and son in law that works at the BMW plant and the current cost for BMW to produce a X-6 that is complete and out the door is just over $15,000 and they have much less automation than Ford does. We the consumer are getting screwed and have been convinced that inflation is the cause. When really technology has reduced costs. We should be getting those Shelby's for a fourth of the current price and they would still make a profit.

I will never buy a new car cannot stomach the thoughts of how I am getting ripped. I keep saying the same thing but it is true.

David

 
I think the problem in reviewing the good old days is two different inflation rates. Wage inflation has not kept up with product inflation. That could be where the split between 500% and 1000% comes from in reviewing the rate from the last 40 years. I think wages are in the 500% range while products follow the 1000% rate. An interest thing about published inflation numbers, from what I've, heard some items that are now cheaper by orders of magnitude can skew the calculations. Fuel and cars follow the factor of ten, cell phones and computers have come down by so much that they can be used to get what ever answer the calculating agency wants. Minimum wage is right about a factor of five over the same time period. It was a lot easer to earn 8K to 10K then than it is to earn 80K to 100K now.

As a side note, being a high school senior when the oil embargo hit gave the perfect storm of muscle car opportunity for me and my fellow gearheads. The desirable cars were two to eight years old and many people wanted nothing to do with them as a knee jerk reaction to the fear of where fuel costs were going. As a result the class of '74 had a lot of cool cars in the student lot at the end of the year.

Keeping to the theme of this thread, I do like today's FE options a lot.

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The thing that killed Motorsport for the average guy was the withdrawal of the factories. When they were involved with the sport, just about anybody could go down to their local parts place, get factory quality proven Hi-Po parts and go racing, geez they even had tech workshops that would come to the dealers and show the people what the latest parts were and also how to set up your Hi-Po gear to get the most out of it. After the factories shut down their racing programs, that all died and it was left to the aftermarket companies to fill the void. It was then that the price of everything performance related jumped, leaving to little guy to really struggle to try and keep going, or stop racing all together. Unfortunately, those good old days are long gone and will never, ever return.
I bought my first performance car in 1973, just as the factories were getting out of HI Perf stuff but the aftermarket exploded to fill the void. Some of it was junk but Scheifer, Hurst, Crane, Holley, Edelbrock, Hooker, Mallory and others filled the needs of those wanting more from their cars. Ford produced the coolest stuff but not much ended up on cars I encountered on the street. When you consider inflation a lot of it has been pretty constant in terms of true cost.

I think we're reliving the good old days right now (at least here in the States). Depending who you believe, US inflation is 500-1000 percent since I bought my first V8. A new Super T 10 cost about $375 when I was making $3.25 and hour. Now a T56 is about $3K. In 1969 Chevy sold two aluminum engine Corvettes. At about 10K Chevy felt there was no market Stingrays with tons of power at double the price of a base model. In 2015 Chevy sold about 9000 Z06 Corvettes (80-120K) with 650 HP. A friend bought a '15 GT Mustang, new for $29K, a real performance bargain. Shelby's can be had with as much HP as the wallet can stand. I do expect this to all end just like in 1971/72 due to the same reasons, government regulation, fuel and insurance cost.
Exactly right about the aftermarket and the average guy in his street car, but for race teams it changed the landscape big time. The factory stopped making these parts and the aftermarket wasn't building complete racing engines for racing teams like the factory was. As David stated a complete HM racing engine was in the $2000 range, when the Cammer came out, you could walk into the dealer and purchase a complete 660+ engine, ready to go for $3000. In the mid 70's an aftermarket block was $1500-$2000, just for a block and bare cylinder heads were $1000+ a pair. Considering what complete engines from the factory were worth a few years earlier to the cost of a few parts now more than a whole engine use to be worth.

Also back in those days the average guy had a chance to race in the big leagues with a very modest budget, nowadays though, well here in Australia, to race in the top tier (V8 Supercars) a yearly licence for a two car team is around 3 million, then over 1.5 million to build two cars, let alone a workshop, machinery/equipment, staff, spares, transporters, etc, etc. This is just our top tier racing, I'd hate to imagine the costs of what it costs to run a NASCAR team over there and probably why we couldn't sustain it here in Australia.

Today though performance is a hell of a lot cheaper though, even compared to ten years ago. Things like heads, a set of CHI are a hell of a lot cheaper, complete ready to go, CNC ported than what a set of Yeates heads were bare over ten years ago. You guys have got it over there when it comes to high performance cars. Shelbys, Hellcats, Z06 Vettes, where over here everything is just overpriced. Don't get me wrong we have some fantastic cars over here, but $60 000+ for the base model high performance cars, well to much money for me. When they were running out the F6 here for around $60 000 drive away, I still couldn't pull the pin on it and I tell you now, it's one hell of a car and even standard those cars embarrass higher spec cars with ease.

As for how long it can keep going on, who knows, but make the most of it while it keeps going, hopefully for quite a while yet anyway.

 
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My brother with his '67 GT-500 427 medium riser just after he graduated college in 1975. He gave $4700 for the car and it was a beast. That said, I was catching up on my Mustang Monthly's over the past few days and see on the last page a small bit on one of the car rags review then of the '67 GT-500 (428, of course). It ran 0 - 60 in 6.1 seconds, about what my son's Accord Si or my wife's Q5 Audi does. Her Boxster would leave it in the dust. Amazing where we have come.



 
Very interesting thread. Lets think that something that brings prices up of everything we buy today is liability and insurance against it. We live in a society where if something goes wrong it has to be someone else's fault so law suits are expensive and way to common. So on top of the direct costs to make a product we need to consider the liability costs and all the overhead that includes marketing, payroll and bunch of other #&$p.

1971 M-code Mach 1

 
We are, in my opinion, here in the U.K mostly free of the liability culture and the astronomical costs involved in running someones a$$ through the court system. Thats one strange cultural norm in the U.S. with some eye watering payouts awarded by judges.

Very interesting thread. Lets think that something that brings prices up of everything we buy today is liability and insurance against it. We live in a society where if something goes wrong it has to be someone else's fault so law suits are expensive and way to common. So on top of the direct costs to make a product we need to consider the liability costs and all the overhead that includes marketing, payroll and bunch of other #&$p.

1971 M-code Mach 1
 
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