XHP 260 and aluminum blocks

[Guido36]

I believe it was - at least in theory - offered by Shelby in two guises, with a 4bbl and rated at 260 hp and with more agressive solid lifter cam, higher compression and the aforementioned 58mm Weber equipped crossram as seen on XHP 260-2, at 335 hp. CSX 2000 still has it's XHP 4bbl and I have also seen photos of 260 XHP-8 as originally fitted to CSX 2001 and raced by Billy Krause. How many of the other 75 260 powered Cobras were fitted with XHP 260s and were there any aluminum blocks among them? Were there any other Weber cross ram equipped cars other than engine XHP 260-5 and was this engine fitted to a Cobra - if so, which CSX number?

For a number of years I owned an aluminum block 289 based de Tomaso engine with Gurney Weslake type heads which considerably pre dated even the earliest GW. This was reputedly one of three such engines, the other two being in the de Tomaso P70 and Sport 5000 from 1964. This was at the time that CS was collaborating with Alejandro and had Pete Brock draw up the design for these two prototypes as a potential replacement for the aging Cooper Monaco/King Cobras. CS had provided the engines or at least the aluminum blocks to Alejandro. I strongly suspect that Harry Weslake designed and supplied the heads to de Tomaso. I will attempt to post up photos I took of my engine (which came to me from Colin Chapman at Lotus from a stillborn Lotus Can Am project) during the 1970s when I figure out why I am getting failed upload messages.