The Gurney Eagle 446 V8 Was Too Powerful?

The Gurney Eagle 446 V8 is one of the most compelling stories of brilliance buried by corporate politics in motorsport history. Ford, it is widely believed, deliberately withdrew support from the engine not because it failed, but because it succeeded far too well and threatened to expose the company's own expensive official programs as overpriced and underperforming. At the center of the story stands Dan Gurney, one of the most complete racing drivers and engineers America ever produced, and his British collaborator Harry Weslake, whose revolutionary cylinder head designs transformed a Ford Windsor small-block into something many believed was simply too powerful and too disruptive for the institution behind it to allow into the world.