Hi,
The man we owe so much to gets a very nice mention in an article in the latest edition of THE RODDER'S JOURNAL.
"The Ardun, that legendary OHV conversion for the flat-head Ford V-8, is a pretty rare piece. Zora Arkus-Duntov, he of the Corvette and General Motors performance, along with his brother Yura, designed that kit back in the late-'40s ostensibly as a cure for the underpowered and overheating Ford trucks of the day. Whether or not the brothers' design was a copy of the French Talbot engine, and whether or not the Ardun became the blueprint for the Chrysler Hemi, which would appear shortly after, is a matter of conjecture and something still widely debated as is the number of those original conversion kits produced, which seems to have settled in somewhere around 400 in total. What isn't debated is the almost immediate acceptance of the Ardun conversion in the performance world." "The Ardun was seen in Allard sports cars, it was used in drag racing, on the dry lakes and at Bonneville." (KRESS)
I thought you all might enjoy reading just a small part of the article which is mainly about the 3 cars which reproduction heads have gone into.
Regards,
Alan
Kress, Joe. "Zora Times Three." THE RODDER'S JOURNAL 49, 2010: 19-39. Print. Photography by Steve Coonan & Geoff Miles.
The man we owe so much to gets a very nice mention in an article in the latest edition of THE RODDER'S JOURNAL.
"The Ardun, that legendary OHV conversion for the flat-head Ford V-8, is a pretty rare piece. Zora Arkus-Duntov, he of the Corvette and General Motors performance, along with his brother Yura, designed that kit back in the late-'40s ostensibly as a cure for the underpowered and overheating Ford trucks of the day. Whether or not the brothers' design was a copy of the French Talbot engine, and whether or not the Ardun became the blueprint for the Chrysler Hemi, which would appear shortly after, is a matter of conjecture and something still widely debated as is the number of those original conversion kits produced, which seems to have settled in somewhere around 400 in total. What isn't debated is the almost immediate acceptance of the Ardun conversion in the performance world." "The Ardun was seen in Allard sports cars, it was used in drag racing, on the dry lakes and at Bonneville." (KRESS)
I thought you all might enjoy reading just a small part of the article which is mainly about the 3 cars which reproduction heads have gone into.
Regards,
Alan
Kress, Joe. "Zora Times Three." THE RODDER'S JOURNAL 49, 2010: 19-39. Print. Photography by Steve Coonan & Geoff Miles.