stroked small blocks in the race cars?

[Dan Case]

Ford created an experimental race engine and some small number were used in Ford backed cars but I never heard of one in a Cobra. Maybe? If a Cobra got one it would have moved it out of a production class and into a modified or experimental class.

One of The Shelby American Automobile Club publications indicates that the Gurney-Ford Lotus 19B used one. I met a man with one for sale long ago. He claimed he obtained it with a broken connecting rod as scrap from Shelby American. He told me that neither Shelby nor Holman-Moody works could get him repair parts. He claimed he had to find a Ford engineer with enough connections inside Ford to round up what was required. He used the engine in a drag racer once it was repaired. The only other one I have come across was with a basket case GT40 in the 1980s. The car’s buyer was hunting parts so he could get that engine operable again.

There is a question as to what their displacement was. Ford company memos say at different times 323 and 325. Period casual references suggest that it was really more like 327 but that size call out would get confused with the Chevy street engines.