Indians For Guns

In New Milton, Hants, on Saturday we saw a `65 -`67 Mustang in Bullitt green ...... a cracking car in superb condition - and extremely rare in the UK. I doubt the colour is original as the Bullit shape didn`t appear until 1968 but who cares.
Less than five minutes later we saw a white MGB GT with a Google Street View camera on top ..... which made it look like a sort of Noddy police car. lol.

That must have been a sight to see. I had once seen a red Mustang near High Wycombe on the way back from London.It was roaring by like an arrow. And soon a convoy of Aston Martins, all black, brought up like the rearguard. Must have been on the way to the dealers or something similar.

Best-
Vikram

The most ridiculous thing I`ve seen in recent months was an Aston Martin ..... if you can call it an Aston Martin - an Aston Martin Cygnet ..... which is is actually a Toyota iQ with an Aston Martin radiator grille, louvres in the bonnet, alloy wheels and a rather stunning all-leather interior : http://www.astonmartin.com/cars/aston-martin-cygnet
Well over £30k for an iQ is crazy however.
Saw another American car on Saturday - a vintage Paterson ( 1909-1923 ) which looked rather like a huge version of an early Ford Model T.
The good weather is bringing out the classic and vintage tin.

Who has seen a purple aston?

Purple ? The vulgar coloured ones all went to India. lol

No one like a PRS purple burst.MUAH!

That PRS purple isn`t a burst .... and it is one of their best colours.

The thing I like about Bullitt's Mustang is that 390 -- Ford's FE is the motor that won Le Mans for the USA. FEs are great motors; one of my most favorite.

But who wouldn't want to duplicate Frank's Mustang? The movie is excellent, Steve McQueen was the King of Cool in a world that is, today, populated by wannabes. The chase scene has only one equal, and that is the one in The French Connection. This is interesting, because the goon driving the Dodge R/T in Bullitt is the FBI agent in The French Connection.

Would you believe that when I was looking around the web after posting about the Mustang I found a source that stated that the car in the movie was a `Shelby GT350` which Steve McQueen removed the badges from !
The pony and badges were removed ...... along with most of the sound insulation and a set of mags fitted.
Yup, Bill Hickman was the driver of the Charger in Bullitt and was also in the French Connection - he was a really good stunt driver. Those heavy black rimmed glasses he wore in Bullitt made him look very different.
The 390 never did it for me ..... A peculiar engine that I never saw the point of - why not make it 427 cu in to start with ? In real terms it would have cost almost nothing. .

I don't believe that the car was a Shelby. My understanding is that it was a Mustang GT with a 390, that did have the insignia removed.

Regarding the 390, as well as the 427:

When Ford first came out with the FEs in 1958, they were 332 and 352 inches in size. This may not sound like a lot, but it actually was: Ford's largest engine at the time was a Y Block of 312 inches, and because the cam was so low in the block, the 312's stroke was about as far as the engine could go in production trim, and the bore was in the same department.

You will remember that, when Detroit first brought an engine out, it seldom was made as large as it's centers would allow it to go. This was so it could be gradually increased in size as the years went on. For instance, the first Olds V8 saw the light of day as a 303 and ended up as a 394. Buick's nail head came out as a 322 and ended its run as a 425. Chevy's small block started life as a 265 and ended as a 400.

Ford stuck with the 352 size through 1960 (although there was a 361/360 truck size that used a .050 over bore - or the 390 bore size -- to give the Edsel a bigger motor. Edsel was supposed to be a step up in the Ford marketing scheme.) and came out with the 390 in 1961. This engine not only was used as Ford's passenger car engine, but it also was the Hi Performance engine, taking over from the 352.

In the early 60s, as engine sizes were increased by all companies, Ford bored the 390 from 4.05" to 4 1/8 to make the 406, but this was used only as a high performance version. The 406 only lasted about a year and a half, when it was replaced by the 427.

The 427 was a whole different animal. It received a different "side oiler" system and crossbolted main caps from the 406. This was something that was not needed for street use, but was oriented toward NASCAR. The stock FE oiling, like most Detroit engines, emphasized pressure to the hydraulic lifters. The sideoiling system emphasized oil to the main and rod bearings. Since the 427 used solid lifters, anyway, this wasn't an issue (except for a detuned hydraulic version in 1968). Since the 427 was a high performance engine, the block was cast from nodular iron, which was stronger and more expensive than the standard cast iron.

A problem with 427s that made them different from any other FEs was the large 4.23" bore. The FE cylinders were based on a 4 5/8" bore spacing, and engines with this spacing, also used by Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and others generally allowed a bore of 4 1/8" by the casting technology of the time. Ford went one better, but could not reliably get a 4.25" bore. one modification to the standard FE casting was that 427 blocks were cast with "Square cylinders," where the outer part of the cylinders were thicker at 4 "corners," giving some support to the thin walls. A 427 was only recommended for a .030" overbore.

So there was a lot of difference between the 427 and everything else.

Two other engines were larger than the 390 in the FE series. In 66 and 67, a 390 with a 3.98 stroke for 410 inches was available in Mercurys, again a higher priced car in Ford's marketing scheme. Then, there was the 428, which was the 406 with the same 3.98" stroke of the 410.

Generally, Detroit shied away from putting over 400 inches of V8 in their smaller cars. For instance, when all the GM intermediates were getting 400s (Pontiac GTOs and Olds 442s, and Chevy Chevelles were getting 396s) Buick had to have a special dispensation to put the 401 version of their nail head in the Grand Sport, even though it was a much less powerful engine than the Chevy 396.

Ford did cheat some: There were the 428 Cobra Jets and Super Cobra Jet Mustangs, and they were Super Stock class terrors in 1968 at the drags. But the generally offered high performance version was the 390 GT, which did have better heads than the standard passenger car versions. And they were no slouches on the street, by any means.

So, if you as a potential Ford customer were dissatisfied with a mere 390 GT, you could step up and shell out the bucks for a 428 -- they were available.

But the 390 was a fine engine. It offered a lot of performance on the street and was about the toughest gasoline engine available for trucks -- even large trucks, that was available at the time.

You know Bullitt's car was not a Shelby GT 350 (which had a small block Ford) because the Shelbys had a scoop behind the door and in front of the rear wheel well, and another scoop on the roof pillar behind the door windows, which Bullitt's Mustang did not have. After all, Bullitt was still just a cop, not a wealthier fellow who could afford expensive toys like a Shelby.

By the way, you knew that even though Ford spread the shock towers on the 1968 Mustang to allow it to take the FE, you still had to unbolt the motor mounts and raise the engine about six inches, to change the middle two spark plugs on each bank, right?

Purple burst as in

http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=h ... A&dur=3633

Now imagine that on a car and not maple.

Timmy, you seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge regarding many things....

The Bullitt Mustang was definitely a GT 390 - the point I was making was that there is some utter bull excreta on the web.
Funnily enought I`ve just been reading about Mustang shock towers cracking and also how on the 390s the towers will pull in towards the engine unless beefed-up.
It`s apparent that the FE has a LOT of fans.
There are some nightmare arrangements on some cars as regards how one has to go about changing sparkplugs. I`m trying to think which car it is that, because the rear of the engine is well under/behind the scuttle, it has to be dropped to allow access to the rear plug/plugs.
We had a Renault 16 briefly once - another vehicle with the rear of the engine well under the scuttle .... The damn thing blew a core plug at the rear of the engine because the dumbass previous owner ( a police officer ) hadn`t put any antifreeze in .............

Yup, that`s a purple burst ..... it`s also an SE which isn`t a `proper` PRS but their cheapo, Korean ( Chinese now I think ) built range

Yeah, i love the creamy PRS tone...will get me a custom 24 some day...

I do believe PRS has one of the better staining processes.Look at their custom shop gallery.Droolll