This 351 Dominated So Hard They Made It Illegal
Rare Car Storys
9,578 views
In 1972, an Australian newspaper ran a story about a car
that didn't exist yet.
It claimed Ford was about to sell ordinary people a sedan
capable of 160 miles an hour. Within weeks, politicians were
debating it in parliament. A state government threatened new
laws. Ford quietly cancelled the car before a single customer
could buy one.
⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 - The Engine That Made Ford's Own Big Blocks Look Slow
1:24 - Act 1: Origins — Ford's $100M Clean Sheet Design
13:48 - Act 2: The Secret War — Internal Politics Killed It
19:59 - Act 3: The Messiah — Jack Roush's Rescue
25:54 - Act 4: The Australian Rescue
38:17 - Act 5: The Legend Lives On
The thing they were all afraid of wasn't the car.
It was the engine inside it.
In 1968, Ford's 302 was maxed out. The ports were small. The
valve angles were conservative. A gentleman's engine being
asked to fight in a war. So Ford made a decision: clean sheet.
Start over. Pour $100 million into a new facility in Brook Park,
Ohio and build the small block that would beat everything —
including Chevrolet.
They called it the 351 Cleveland.
Canted valves tilted on two axes simultaneously — intake valves
at 9.5° sideways and 4° forward. Ports so large that at low RPM
the engine ran rough. It wasn't built to loaf. It was built to
breathe at high revs and it didn't pretend otherwise. Ralph Moody
of Holman-Moody — who had seen every Ford racing engine since the
1950s — said it was the best head Ford ever put on a small block.
Period. The 1971 Boss 351 Mustang was rated at 330 horsepower.
Car and Driver and Motor Trend laughed at that number. Real-world
output was widely estimated at well over 400.
Then the Cleveland outran Ford's own big blocks. That's when
the politics started.
The 351 was lighter than the 429 Cobra Jet. Cheaper to build.
Faster in configurations that cost consumers far less. The
executives and product managers tied to Ford's premium big block
lineup weren't celebrating — they were threatened. The Cleveland
had broken the internal logic of Ford's entire product hierarchy.
The racing division fought for it. The legacy engine camp fought
against it. The Cleveland was winning the argument on merit. It
was losing it on politics.
Then the EPA arrived.
The Clean Air Act of 1970. Emissions standards structurally
incompatible with the canted valve heads that made the Cleveland
breathe. Compression dropped from 11.0:1 to 8.0:1. The 1973
Arab oil embargo finished the job. By 1974, the engine bearing
the Cleveland nameplate had none of its soul.
One engineer refused to accept that.
Jack Roush — the future Cat in the Hat of NASCAR — was a
27-year-old in a rented building in Livonia, Michigan. He worked
by measurement, not feel. He and partner Wayne GAP cut the stock
exhaust ports off entirely and welded on custom plates. Twenty to
twenty-five horsepower in one modification. They revved Cleveland
engines to 9,000-plus RPM. They won the 1973 NHRA Pro Stock title.
The sanctioning bodies started rewriting the rules to stop them.
NHRA imposed punishing weight penalties specifically targeting
Cleveland-powered cars. When that wasn't enough, they moved to a
500 cubic inch minimum in Pro Stock — forcing small Clevelands
out of the class entirely. Multiple series did the same across
drag racing, circle track, and boats. The pattern was always
identical: Cleveland dominates, then the rulebook changes.
While America buried it, Australia saved it.
Ford Australia introduced the Cleveland in 1970 for the XW Falcon
GT. By November 1971, the Geelong plant near Melbourne was casting
its own blocks. Over 250,000 Australian-built Clevelands followed.
The engine powered Falcons, Fairlanes, De Tomaso Panteras, and the
Bolwell Nagari. At Bathurst — a circuit that destroyed engines —
Cleveland-powered Falcons survived. The sound became one of the
defining sounds of Australian motorsport. Veterans can still
identify it by ear.
In 1972, Ford planned the Phase 4 Falcon GT — 200 units,
estimated 380 horsepower, the hottest Cleveland ever put in a
production car. A newspaper story about 160 mph family sedans
triggered a parliamentary debate. Ford cancelled it at the
eleventh hour. One road-registered Phase 4 exists. Three
race cars. In 2019, one attracted a top auction bid of
$2 million — a record for a locally-built car — before the
sale fell through. The last Cleveland-powered vehicle left
the Geelong line in 1985. A Bronco.
The 351 Cleveland didn't fail. The world changed around it.
Its outlaw nickname tells you everything — earned by being so
good that rules were rewritten to stop it. It burned bright,
rewrote expectations, and left a devoted following that keeps
the legend alive to this day.
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13 Comments
It turns out that in the mid to late 60's Chevrolet was planning on copying the Chevrolet big block canted valve heads onto the small blocks, but then because GM decided to pull out of racing altogether, and because they wanted to save money by not retooling and keeping that money for themselves, Chevrolet killed the program.
Shortly afterward, in the late 60s one of the big wigs left Chevrolet and went to Ford. Smoky Yunick also followed, and shortly after that, Ford "somehow" ended up making a canted valve head.
Like many engines in the EPA pollution era they disappeared as meeting Emissions standards for big port and big valve engines was Impossible in the 70s.
Cleveland morphed into the 351 M . . . and with increased deck height became the 400 . . .
Solid Lifter version was in the Boss 351 Mustang in 1971, 1806 examples built.
Knew a guy back in the day who had a machine shop on the West Coast, built Clevelands for a local Dealer who sponsored a Sprint Car at the local dirt track.
He had a 69 Mustang GT which he built and full race Hilborne Injected 351 C for . . . with all the period tricks. With a 2.79 gear in the Mustang he claimed to hit 170 on I5 back in the day. The Dyno said it made 513 HP. Same guy built my 447 ci 550 HP FE . . .
Robert Yates C3 NASCAR Heads similar to the Cleveland design . . . . Ausies did make Aluminum Heads & Blocks I understand.
This 351 Dominated So Hard They Made It Illegal
Rare Car Storys
9,578 views
In 1972, an Australian newspaper ran a story about a car
that didn't exist yet.
It claimed Ford was about to sell ordinary people a sedan
capable of 160 miles an hour. Within weeks, politicians were
debating it in parliament. A state government threatened new
laws. Ford quietly cancelled the car before a single customer
could buy one.
⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 - The Engine That Made Ford's Own Big Blocks Look Slow
1:24 - Act 1: Origins — Ford's $100M Clean Sheet Design
13:48 - Act 2: The Secret War — Internal Politics Killed It
19:59 - Act 3: The Messiah — Jack Roush's Rescue
25:54 - Act 4: The Australian Rescue
38:17 - Act 5: The Legend Lives On
The thing they were all afraid of wasn't the car.
It was the engine inside it.
In 1968, Ford's 302 was maxed out. The ports were small. The
valve angles were conservative. A gentleman's engine being
asked to fight in a war. So Ford made a decision: clean sheet.
Start over. Pour $100 million into a new facility in Brook Park,
Ohio and build the small block that would beat everything —
including Chevrolet.
They called it the 351 Cleveland.
Canted valves tilted on two axes simultaneously — intake valves
at 9.5° sideways and 4° forward. Ports so large that at low RPM
the engine ran rough. It wasn't built to loaf. It was built to
breathe at high revs and it didn't pretend otherwise. Ralph Moody
of Holman-Moody — who had seen every Ford racing engine since the
1950s — said it was the best head Ford ever put on a small block.
Period. The 1971 Boss 351 Mustang was rated at 330 horsepower.
Car and Driver and Motor Trend laughed at that number. Real-world
output was widely estimated at well over 400.
Then the Cleveland outran Ford's own big blocks. That's when
the politics started.
The 351 was lighter than the 429 Cobra Jet. Cheaper to build.
Faster in configurations that cost consumers far less. The
executives and product managers tied to Ford's premium big block
lineup weren't celebrating — they were threatened. The Cleveland
had broken the internal logic of Ford's entire product hierarchy.
The racing division fought for it. The legacy engine camp fought
against it. The Cleveland was winning the argument on merit. It
was losing it on politics.
Then the EPA arrived.
The Clean Air Act of 1970. Emissions standards structurally
incompatible with the canted valve heads that made the Cleveland
breathe. Compression dropped from 11.0:1 to 8.0:1. The 1973
Arab oil embargo finished the job. By 1974, the engine bearing
the Cleveland nameplate had none of its soul.
One engineer refused to accept that.
Jack Roush — the future Cat in the Hat of NASCAR — was a
27-year-old in a rented building in Livonia, Michigan. He worked
by measurement, not feel. He and partner Wayne GAP cut the stock
exhaust ports off entirely and welded on custom plates. Twenty to
twenty-five horsepower in one modification. They revved Cleveland
engines to 9,000-plus RPM. They won the 1973 NHRA Pro Stock title.
The sanctioning bodies started rewriting the rules to stop them.
NHRA imposed punishing weight penalties specifically targeting
Cleveland-powered cars. When that wasn't enough, they moved to a
500 cubic inch minimum in Pro Stock — forcing small Clevelands
out of the class entirely. Multiple series did the same across
drag racing, circle track, and boats. The pattern was always
identical: Cleveland dominates, then the rulebook changes.
While America buried it, Australia saved it.
Ford Australia introduced the Cleveland in 1970 for the XW Falcon
GT. By November 1971, the Geelong plant near Melbourne was casting
its own blocks. Over 250,000 Australian-built Clevelands followed.
The engine powered Falcons, Fairlanes, De Tomaso Panteras, and the
Bolwell Nagari. At Bathurst — a circuit that destroyed engines —
Cleveland-powered Falcons survived. The sound became one of the
defining sounds of Australian motorsport. Veterans can still
identify it by ear.
In 1972, Ford planned the Phase 4 Falcon GT — 200 units,
estimated 380 horsepower, the hottest Cleveland ever put in a
production car. A newspaper story about 160 mph family sedans
triggered a parliamentary debate. Ford cancelled it at the
eleventh hour. One road-registered Phase 4 exists. Three
race cars. In 2019, one attracted a top auction bid of
$2 million — a record for a locally-built car — before the
sale fell through. The last Cleveland-powered vehicle left
the Geelong line in 1985. A Bronco.
The 351 Cleveland didn't fail. The world changed around it.
Its outlaw nickname tells you everything — earned by being so
good that rules were rewritten to stop it. It burned bright,
rewrote expectations, and left a devoted following that keeps
the legend alive to this day.
🔔 Subscribe for more Outlaw Automotive History:
@rarecarstorys
Come for the cars. Stay for the stories.
Like 👍 | Comment 💬 | Share 🔄 | Subscribe 🚗
The Cleveland was killed three times — by internal Ford
politics, by the EPA, and by the sanctioning bodies who
kept moving the goalposts every time Roush won.
Which kill shot actually mattered most?
And the one that keeps us up at night: if Ford had given
Roush and the racing division full factory backing instead
of cutting the program — does the Cleveland become the
greatest small block in American history, or was the
political resistance always going to win?
One more: the Phase 4 Falcon. If that car had reached
the public — 380 horsepower in a street sedan in 1972 —
does it become the most legendary muscle car nobody has
ever heard of?
Drop your answer below. We read every single one. 🏁
#smokeybelongs