The Dandy Griffith

If not treated with respect, the car’s 85-inch wheelbase and 289 Ford V8 will have you spinning like a dog chasing a laser pointer

by Colin Comer

Unlike the environmentally conscious, fuel-sipping, ultra-low emissions, and utterly boring “hybrid” cars of today, a whole different group deserved that name in the 1960s.

They consisted of European sports cars that fell into the hands of cottage industry “manufacturers,” which took Italian and British sports car sophistication (or lack thereof) and shoehorned in American V8 lumps.

The period is the 1960s, so we are skipping cars built by men like Cunningham and Allard, though all these creations used American V8s. Most popular was the lightweight Ford 260/289 V8, although many cars also used Chevrolet small-blocks and Chrysler V8s.

Thanks in great part to Carroll Shelby, British cars with the Ford 260/289 were by far the most successful. In this segment, the players included Shelby’s Cobra, the Ford GT40, the Sunbeam Tiger, and the...