[ATTACH]
Bet that one was a bit nose heavy. Eventually BOP went to an aluminum V8 for their mid-size cars. Rover bought the rights to it and the tooling eventually.
Actually, the aluminum V-8 was developed in 1961 by Buick, in 3.5-liter form, for the new GM compacts, the Buick Special, the Olds F-85 and the Pontiac Tempest. Olds even developed a turbo version. In 1964 GM moved those cars up to mid-size and switched to engines like the one in the ad above. They found a buyer for the aluminum engine in Rover, and it was used in various British cars (including the original Range Rover) for some 30 years. Oh, and the Australians got their hands on the engine as well, and a tuning house named Repco developed a 3-liter version for the Brabham F1 team, which won the world championship in 1966 and 1967! It's the only engine originating in America that ever won the F1 world championship. (The later "Fords" were all developed in the U.K.)
And many years later Porsche got into the transplant act with the V-8-powered Mooney PFM....jsut about as successful too
This discussion brings back a scary memory of the late spring of 1965. After spending the 1964 fall and winter overhauling my motor after the Bridgehampton incident, I began actively exploring replacing the nine year old 2 liter Ferrari 500 motor with the lightweight BOP 3.5 liter motor. After locating one in a junkyard in southern Staten Island, I took lots of measurements to see what it would take to fit that motor and bell housing in my chassis. On the morning of 16 June 1965 I was informed that in four days I was going to be sent to Tourane for an indeterminate period of time which turned out to be 375 days. By the way, Tourane is the old French name for DaNang. So much for plans to increase the horsepower of my old race car. In retrospect it was a very fortunate turn of events as the car retained its Ferrari motor. As is often said "Timing is everything!" Best regards, Robert
Yes, the Porsche-Mooney (or Mooney Porsche!) was a gear-drive 3.2 liter flat six, called, I believe a Porsche Flugenmotor (sp). It was apparently a failure, or so I've been told by a number of A&P mechanics. There was at least one lawsuit: https://www.courthousenews.com/porsche-fails-to-outpace-suit-over-plane-engines/ Bob Z.
Reminds me of the 3/4-scale P-51 Mustang I once saw fly with a 454 c.i. Chevy V-8. Looked like an airplane, sounded like a car!
The car engine to airplane has never really worked well except maybe the Ford Model A in the Pietenpol. I flew Pete Bower's, that was an original ,and it worked quite well. That is until you looked out to the left when you pulled carb heat and got hitting the face with a chunk of ice. Really, a great flying little airplane, tho.