Roy Lunn

[FuturaGuy]

R.I.P. Roy Lunn - "Godfather" of the GT-40

http://autoweek.com/article/people/g...lunn-1925-2017

[qikgts]

I never knew any of that history before. Thanks for sharing.

RIP Mr. Lunn.

[xctasy]

"The next year we built a totally new car, all American pieces and, most important, we came up with a new body structure made of honeycombed aluminum, and it was much stronger and very much lighter. We called it the Mark IV GT. In 1966, we won Le Mans for Ford. In 1967, we won again. For 1968 they changed the rules, limiting engines to 5 liters. We went back to our 5-liter engine and won again in both 1968 and 1969--four years in a row."

@ https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hc...n/3750397.html

The Eagle SX/4 was basically the 1968 Fergusan Formula Zephyr Zodiac 3 liter chasiss....coil over A arm IFS, FF Developments transfer case, but the crazy 4 " uniframe lift which made the car the first Soft Roader X over. Racking loads on unibody frame development was a major issue for the integrated tray bed 1961-1963 Ford F-100 Unibody Pickups, and AMC was broke, so for the planned XJ, they took the Cherokee to the Paris Daker to do the unibody development on the cheep.

The thhink that brough Roy Lunn to the USA was the entrenched conservatism of the English Ford Dagenaham Board.

He basically


1. created the super short stroke 1959 997 cc 105E Kent engine on the original 3.78" bore spacing 4 and 6 cylinder transfer lines from Dagenham Consul and Zephyr, which re used old transfer lines reset to make a new engine on the old tooling systems with modern production upgrades. It was initially supposed to be front drive, and lookes it.



This engine became the block base for the FVA, and then the DFV Cosworth V8....and the Mazda 2.3/2.5 Twin Cam still uses the bore centers, as the modern alloy engine is a revamped Hart BDA with major revamp.


The Ford Uglier, um, Anglia.....




Same concept that made the 221-260-289 engines on re-jigged Y block centers with revised "lead from the right" V block tooling.


2. then the front drive US Cardinal the original 90 degree German Koln Truck V6 transfer lines (like Roy, 75 years of engineering work was found inside every Cologne V4 and then V6 till that last German Mustang V6 in 2011)

3. that begat the Mustang I

4. then that begat the front drive Ford Taunus with Uwe Bahnsen

Everying thing was done in a Passover rush...the XP 200 Falcon under Mc Namara was done in an 18 month 390 engineering day "crash course", unheard of for a chassis concept that lasted 37 years....well, the mid engined Taunus engined Mustang I concept, 100 days!.

"I set to work in conjunction with the Styling Department and we came up with the Mustang I, a two-seat, mid-engine sportster. I'd taken the whole front-drive powertrain from the Cardinal and placed it midship on the Mustang. We went from concept to running prototype in 100 days!