Wouldn't it be cool if someone built a tribute to Mickey Thompson's Maverick funny car? Instead of the fragile dry deck Boss heads and iron Boss blocks of the 70's, contemporary A441 style billet full hemi heads with a Carol Carter "Roberts" dry block would make the engine far more reliable than the Boss 429 grenades they tried to compete with decades ago. I certainly would pay $$ to watch it run. Not sure if the NHRA's ban on the Boss 429 (bore spacing) would apply to nostalgia cars or not.
Actually Ford had some success with the 427 cammer in some of those classes back in the day including Top Fuel & Funny car.
Yes, they did. In fact, the SOHC 427 was a much better fuel engine than the Boss back then. Unfortunately, the only blocks that would stand up to the Nitro were the high nickel 427 blocks that were getting harder and harder to find. Cam timing would drift all over the place as well. Pete Robinson actually fixed that issue, but died in a crash shortly thereafter. Tommy Grove had one of the last Cammer powered floppers and he flat ran out of blocks. Ford didn't want to talk racing or support the Cammer anymore. The Boss 429 heads of the day were not holding up to the cylinder pressures produced by nitro. The head decks were too thin and would crack/warp. Combine this with the lack of a head gasket and you ended up with in some spectacular engine failures. Move ahead several decades and you have a redesigned Alan Root (AR) full hemi head, available in solid billet. Add a solid, sleeved, alloy block available through Carrol Carter and a bunch of $$$$$ and you have a fuel engine, the one Ford wanted Force to try. Unfortunately, the NHRA said NO!
For the life of me, I can't remember who it was, but a few years ago on here, I think I remember someone actually mentioning one of these old funny car bodies sitting somewhere that they had found. Doug Bauer maybe? That is PURE speculation, but for some reason, I vaguely remember him having something to do with that story. It was a long time ago lol, but there have to be some of those bodies still around sitting behind a shop somewhere.
I would think that any glass Maverick bodies would be in pretty bad shape after all of these years. Just wish someone who loves Fords would resurrect a tribute to Mickey's Maverick, which I believe was destroyed in a fire in the early 70's.
