Back in the late 80's I made my first trip to York Pa East coast nationals of the NSRA. WE drove there in George Perry's 1942 Ford Ambulance with a 276 L-100 cam engine I just built and finished the night before. While there we counted about 5 or 6 Flathead powered cars. Soon after I published my Book "Nostalgia"by the late 90's the number of Flathead cars reach well over a hundere. However, Last week the number dropped to ton more than 5 or 6. George said I should write another book. But I think the era of the Flathead the passed. The cost and availability of usable engines ahs forced the price beyond the casual builder now. Not many of us flathead lovers left and very few are joining lately, especially when you can have a dressed craye motor for less than half the price with twice the power. I don't think the Flathead is done yet, as there are a few of us that will keep the torch burning as long as we can.
Hi Ron, how you doing up there!
Those words ring very true, let me say why.
Back in the early to mid '80's we were doing more than 15 Flatheads per year, probably closer to 20, most of these were for a single customer who specialized in these units. He did nothing but Flatheads, period. This was the start with us keeping a fairly large inventory of the parts for them. By today's standards I still have a decent inventory, for instance, always have a minimum of at least 5 stroker kits at all times, bronze-lined guides, valves, lifters, gasket sets, brgs, etc.
My customer was known in our area as "Flathead Bob", had a high number of followers for sure. I do know at the time he was being contacted constantly by the guy's at Detroit Flathead, seems they were sort of interested in what he knew! He eventually tired of this setup. He passed away in the mid '90's, I considered him a really true friend rather than a customer! I had begun working on a "tuned-port" build with him long before his passing, never happened unfortunately however.
I'm not sure today how much of this will get replaced as used, I really don't know?? What I do know is I still enjoy building them and dynoing them, this will never pass for me anyway!
We are probably way down on the number of builds today compared to where were, but as you said above, time is moving on and so are all the people.
(Add) Just found one of the plaques Bob would install on many of his builds, was a nice finishing touch on many! Photo's below!
Thanks, Gary in N.Y.
P.S. In have a lot of appreciation for guy's like yourself, really. I still learn new things almost every day! For us at this stage building these "Flatties" is a "walk-in-the-park" so to speak. We see the same pattern happening now with the SBC units, the old-style 23* builds are being replaced by the "LS" units, it's just inevitable really.
