Ordering engines from Ford

[6s855]

Does anyone know the process that Ford used to deliver small batches of engines to various car builders?  That would mean exporting a dozen hipos to TVR in England or some 260's to Sunbeam for their tigers as well as USA deliveries to Griffith on Long Island and of course Shelby for cobras.  I read somewhere that an entity called "Ford Industrial Engine" handled this, but no explanation of what it was.  There's an ID tag glued to the hipo valve cover of my 68 TVR Tuscan that says "Ford Industrial Engine" and might be a clue.

So if you wanted to order just 10 hipos from Ford, how would that work?  Have some guy on a fork lift go down the assembly line looking through the 289's and picking out a random 10?  Was there a different assembly line for each type? 260's here? 289 2 barrels there? 289 hipos over there?  With thousands of engines being built, how do you select out just a few?

Inquiring minds want to know, or at least this one does.

Jay

[pbf777]

     I'm sure there were several possible processes over the decades, and may have varied as to who (connections?), or where (in continent or off shore?), and even how many one was buying, as to the routing of the product; but beginning in the early 1980's we were buying six to ten engines at a time as a quantity wholesale account, and we were routed to Ford Industrial Division and a local industrial dealer to handle the business. The sums we were purchasing obviously didn't excite anyone at Ford Motor Co., nor would they have qualified for any special production run of any unique hardware (this probably would have required 100+ units, and even then scheduled in concert with an order from Ford Parts & Service as a piggy-back order); so basically one chose from the industrial listings available, which most often were targeted as boat motors (watch out for the reverse rotational units!), recamed & intaked (real words?) it and voila, automotive application now, and were particularly popular with the Cobra kit crowd!.     

     Scott.

[J_Speegle]

So if you wanted to order just 10 hipos from Ford, how would that work?  Have some guy on a fork lift go down the assembly line looking through the 289's and picking out a random 10?  Was there a different assembly line for each type? 260's here? 289 2 barrels there? 289 hipos over there?  With thousands of engines being built, how do you select out just a few?

Engines would have been routed out of the engine plants not the car assembly plants. From there they were moved by rail to where ever (car assembly plants, parts depots and so on to where they would be sent to their final destination or to the retailer as I understand it.  Sometimes these orders were not for regular production motors but it depended on the connections, agreements and specification. Often different from one another so getting specific, if your looking into one of those,   might be difficult unless you can uncover some ordering documents or invoices. Just depends.


Here is a shot of part of the inventory Holman and Moody had on hand at one point. Posted this picture back in the old Forum
Note these appear to be engines ordered for a specific purpose so many of the features do not match engines installed on production cars



If you wanted a handful of new motors you could just start with your local Ford dealer and go from there

[gt350hr]

    Jay,
        MANY people have misconceptions as to how things were done at Ford. A TON of red tape was created to have a "run" of engines built at the ( in this case) Cleveland Engine Plant. Others functioned the same way. It went pretty much like this.
     Product planning would propose an engine option for "said" vehicle and estimated ( quantity) need for that engine PLUS an over run for warranty and some for the Parts and Service division . An order would also have scheduling dates as the entire order was not needed all at once. Once the order was approved and placed , the engine plant would cast, machine and build the engines to be identical per a very specific engine build "book" created by the production engine development engineers. Once "decked" they would be warehoused by the engine build number ( I.E. 554 for a '65 hipo) until they ( or some quantity of them) were needed .  An engine built for the Industrial Engine group would have a different engine build # as the specifications were "usually" different than " vehicle production" engines. The Industrial Engine group was more flexible with respect to building"non emissions conforming" engines like may have been supplied to TVR and the Rootes group. "Bulk engine orders" were filled from inventory ( or manufacture ) at the engine plant not the vehicle assembly plant. Small orders ( one to five) could have been handled by Parts and Service Division as they stocked complete engine assemblies for the current model year ONLY. Previous year engines "usually" were returned to Ford or sold off to dealers at a reduced rate.
   "Some" engines were sent as "racing" or "promotional" through Product Planning or the Marketing division. These would require an additional amount of "red tape" to make happen. Bottom line everything had to be accounted for and documented. One of my friends spent many years at Ford approving requisitions for the race entities  and many other groups. Some of his stories were very interesting.
    Randy

[mark p]

thanks Randy.
I thought (iirc) that I had read that the Tiger engines came thru the Industrial channel, and that helps to explain the black paint and generator on some M.Y. 1966 [Sunbeam/Rootes] vehicles.

[gt350hr]

   Mark ,
      All built at the same engine plant but to different build specifications. Ford Industrial would take bulk orders for "specialty" customers. Ford Motorsport/Racing used to sell leftover/over runs of marine engines ( painted grey) when the "bulid" amount exceeded the demand. Since they didn't meet passenger car emissions standards , they were sold that way instead of scrapping them as they used to. I am fairly certain The tiger engines were done the same way. Rootes would give a PO for xxx amount of engines and a schedule of when they needed them  and the engine plant would build and ship them.
   Randy

[mark p]

Good stuff.
I think that the [possibly slightly  fictionalized?] widely circulated version of the story basically said it that it all started when Lord Rootes called Henry Ford (who was on his yacht) and said "I need x,000 of those 260s shipped over here"  ... I guess that wudda been about equal to a P.O. 

[shelbydoug]

I never thought of those engines being industrial? I do remember Ferrari making a comment though after Lemans '66.

"Beaten by an industrial engine!" Semantics I suppose? 

[JohnB]

Would guess that this would be for the De Tomaso Mangusta also?

Anyone with a pic of the tag from an original 289 Mangusta?

[shelbydoug]

Would guess that this would be for the De Tomaso Mangusta also?

Anyone with a pic of the tag from an original 289 Mangusta?

They are standard 4v manual J codes. The date codes on them seem to be May and June '68. They have the same engine tags as would be on a Mustang.

There's a thread on the Pantera Forum about 4v heads which might show the tag from the engine in question? The difference would be that the Mangusta has a Detomaso stamped engine number into the rear pad on the intake manifold that matches the tag on the chassis.


I just checked. No engine tag but a picture of the intake manifold with the Detomaso stamping on it.
Here's the link. I think you have to join to see the pics, but it's free.

https://pantera.infopop.cc/topic/original-engine-block-and-original-cylinder-head

As far as there being an original 289 Mangusta, indications are that all US bound cars were 302's. The discussion was that only the first two built were 289's. The gold one that was shown as the introduction car at the car shows, with the glass roof, was retained by the Detomaso family.

[gt350hr]

  Special air cleaner was about the only difference.

[shelbydoug]

Mangusta block