The Car Challenge

[Nereus]

An interesting sideline found while cheating on Google:

In 1953, a Ford Zephyr Six driven by Maurice Gatsonides won the Monte Carlo rally, pushing a Jaguar Mark VII into second place in the process. Two years later a Ford Zephyr Six driven by Vic Preston with D P Marwaha won the East African Safari Rally.[5]

Nereus - was the engineer in question British or American?

British.

[Bristolian]

Was he responsible for the airflow intake?

[Nereus]

Was he responsible for the airflow intake?

That was part of it, as were a couple of other items already mentioned, but not super / turbo charging.
He had a remarkable career in many ways, but the question relates to what was considered the Holy Grail of performance enhancements to the Ford 6 cylinder engine.

[STEVE G]

I don't know Zephyrs, did they have the 3000 V6 as fitted to Granadas and Capris?

[Dannie Boy]

Was he responsible for the airflow intake?

That was part of it, as were a couple of other items already mentioned, but not super / turbo charging.
He had a remarkable career in many ways, but the question relates to what was considered the Holy Grail of performance enhancements to the Ford 6 cylinder engine.

Was it the crossflow system that was introduced on the cylinder heads?

[PeteC]

SOHC or DOHC? Pete

[Bristolian]

Raymond Mays Cylinder Head

[Nereus]

Raymond Mays Cylinder Head

There you go! There are still people looking for them. The first ones were modified factory heads, but with the advent of the Mk 2 he started casting them in aluminium.

The engine was a straight 6, overhead valve, push rod of simple design. The factory used a weird exhaust manifold referred to as a "hockey stick", as that is what it looked like. Just a piece of tubing with holes cut in it, but the head itself had a half round shape in the casting to match up to the tubing. That was the first thing to be replaced when attempting to improve the engines., and as far as I ever got!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Mays

[Nereus]

My first "legal" car was a Mk1 Zephyr. My Mother had one before that, which was replaced with a Mk2. There was always great competition in Oz between the Ford drivers and the GMH Holden's, which had a similar spec.

The attached photos are of the convertible that I sold in Oz about 5 years ago. I had intended to bring it here, in pieces if necessary, but the advice I was given was that I would never be able to register it, as that model had not been used or imported here. I guess the problem would have been "negotiable", but I decided I did not need the hassle, especially after having been through it before years ago with a Range Rover.

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[tuktukmike]

You made the right decision Nereus, I lost my Toyota Supra at Laem Chabang after customs kept upping the import duty every time I agreed the previous price.

But that is a beauty and would shudder to think what price one like that would fetch in the uk.

Ttm

[Dannie Boy]

Ok a new challenge to identify?

[Terry]

Jensen 541

Only know it because my old boss had one...............
Nice in it's day

[Dannie Boy]

Jensen 541

Only know it because my old boss had one...............
Nice in it's day

Well done Terry, quick off the mark, further details about the car as follows, interestingly the fact that this car was the first to have seat-belts fitted as standard some 50 years ago:

1961 Jensen 541s

The Jensen 541s was released in 1960 and ran until 1963. In total 127 were produced. Unusually for a sports car all but 22 were fitted with Rolls Royce automatic transmissions. Interestingly the Jensen was the first British car to have seat belts fitted as standard equipment.

[Ginjaninja]

Love the body panels...

[Dannie Boy]

Love the body panels...

Today they'd probably be banned on the basis of being pedestrian unfriendly!!