Don Coleman, Ford Racing

[David Briggs]

We were in Las Vegas for the Pantera Fun Ralley and the featured speaker was Don Coleman, who was with Ford's Racing and parts support program in the 60' and early 70's. He was there to speak about his involvement with Ford as a liason between Ford and the Detomaso factory, concerning the production of the Pantera.
He saw my car at the the Pantera car show on saturday and came up to me. It turned out that he was part of Ford's small block racing developement program and was heavily involved in the GT40 program! He is a very interesting fellow, knows everybody related to that scene and has a lot of cool insight into the events and characters of that time. He was attached to Wyer Racing and was part of their 68-69 LeMans program.
He does have some dyno sheets and other information related to the cars back then and has offered to share them with me, I will post anything that looks interesting.
He gave a good talk at our dinner saturday night and risked slings and arrows from the Pantera crowd by telling what it was like dealing with the Patron Saint of Panteradom, Alejandro Detomaso.
Dave

 

[DON SILAWSKY]

I would be very interested in getting in touch with Coleman to try to sort out the mysterious "C6FE" 289 block that Ford produced in late 1965 through mid-1966 for use by teams racing GT40s. It is a 2-bolt block like the Hi-Po and visually appears very similar to a Hi-Po if not identical. No one seems to know what the differences are between the C6FE and Hi-Po, if any, and why Ford put a different casting number of this block. Any information that you can get from Coleman about this would be really appreciated.

Also, information and/or stories about the short-lived 325 CID stroker motor for GT40s would be interesting too. I had been told that Ford contrated with Holman-Moody to build 25 of these motors, but lately I learned that Shelby-American built some as well.

Thanks!

 

[David Briggs]

I will be seeing him again next month and will try to get him on the forum.

 

David,
I too would like to see Don on the forum. I have a similar question about the 325ci stroker. The Lotus 19B that I crewchief for was equipted with one at one point. I believe that it came from Shelby or Ford itself and was run at the 64 Daytona race. Would love to find the specs to see if it could be replicated. Currently we run a standard 289 and would love to have the extra 36 cubic inches and still be legal for vintage racing. Thanks for the effort.

 

[DON SILAWSKY]

David,
I too would like to see Don on the forum. I have a similar question about the 325ci stroker. The Lotus 19B that I crewchief for was equipted with one at one point. I believe that it came from Shelby or Ford itself and was run at the 64 Daytona race. Would love to find the specs to see if it could be replicated. Currently we run a standard 289 and would love to have the extra 36 cubic inches and still be legal for vintage racing. Thanks for the effort.

I own what may be the only surviving example of an original factory 325 CID stroker motor built "in the day." Sounds like it would be a great fit for the 19B. Get in touch by PM or e-mail if you want to discuss.