For those of you who do not know the story about these this should
set you straight.
When Shelby sold out to Ford around '68, he sold off a lot of bits.
The Tiger and Cobra valve cover patterns and oil pan patterns were
bought by a fellow named Murray Cliff from Vancouver, BC who raced a
Tiger and ran a part time business called MRC Motors. If you bought
LAT 8's from Frey Racing in CA, they probably said MRC Motors inside
instead of "Buddy Bar", because I sent them to Jim Frey.
There were quite a few runs of valve covers done. The patterns
included the Tiger, early Cobra(no filler/PCV holes), and late Cobra
(same as Tiger). The oil pan patterns all used the same center
section and different side plates for Tiger, Cobra("roadster"pans,
like Tiger ones), and GT350 style "hammerhead" Cobra pans. There were
only a few oil pans made as the foundry that made them had a lot of
trouble working with the patterns. The "inner" sand mold weighed
about 500 lbs, similar for the "outer" mold and the production was
probably too time consuming for them. They did big stuff like
flywheels for the BC coastal ferries, so they did have lots of
experience. The valve cover patterns were much easier to use and they
could crank out a lot in a day.
Murray had some of the oil pans made up without the "Cobra" or
"Tiger" logo, only the "Powered by Ford" part. If you run into one of
these, it might have come from him.
All these patterns are now in the capable hands of Rick at SS.
How do I know all this? Well, I used to buy stuff from Murray and I
still recall being at his house when he was tapping the drain plug
holes on a run of pans.
The guy who owned the foundry was a patient of my father's. I got to
go and visit the foundry one day and had a long chat with him.
Unfortunately, I still couldn't talk him into an LAT pan.
I got to know one of the Shelby guys here, Mike Stidwill, who had a
side business selling Shelby and Cobra stuff. He got a Tiger and got
Murray to run some Tiger covers. I gave one of these sets to Ian
Garrad one year at TU. The next runs went to Jim Frey in San Jose.
Hope this clears up some of the mystery!
Peter
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