do any of you guys know anything about a ford griffen? Its a fibergl*** bodied car like a cobra,built in the 60's. small block ford powered?
Yes built in england.Imported in to US by a guy by the name of Griffin I think he was from Long Island.He installed small block Fords.Some had superchargers I believe.Drove one back in the 70's small and fast.Don't know much else.
1965 Griffith. Same era as the Cobra. The one I knew about came with a 271 Hipo 289. I don't know if they all did but my friends did. They later changed the body style and went with the small Chrysler V8.
They were a major handfull on the track, as were the Sunbeam Tigers. Too short and way to much power for the weight along with more 'civilized' suspension. Bit longer and they would have been compe***ive - at least in amateur racing. Shelby had a LOT of factory backing.
I vividly remeber being p***ed by one on the Bay Bridge when I was little. It made me "almost" like british cars. The Sunbeam Tiger just didn't have the same style as the Griffith. There was a TVR dealer in Rockville,MD up until a couple years ago that had one in their showroom.
A friend in the UK owned - briefly - a later version of that car that some maniac had stuffed a built 427 chevy into. It would blow three foot flames out of the carb on over-run (how fantastic is that on a plastic car?!)as there was no room for an air filter and I remember him telling me how he´d gone to pull away on a right hand junction, driving perfectly normally, and spun it right round in the middle of the street. Probably something to do with the 6x13" slot mags meaning it was more than slightly lacking in tyre. It looked like this...
If you want to know more; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVR As for Sunbeam Tigers being a handful I will respectfully disagree as a former owner/racer of one. they did quite well on the track, especially the Harrington models that ran at Le Mans
Griffin's were cool, we saw quite a number of them drag racing in the northeast. personally, I like the Jensen cars better. There's a guy in Tulsa that has an Interceptor with a factory installed 440 in it...
I had one of those Interceptor's with the Chrysler 440 in it. It was a P I G! Very heavy, not very fast, overheated at the drop of a hat - was truly a grand Touring car, not a Sports Car or Hot Rod by any means. But at least it had Lucas Electrics so that we never had to worry about driving at night.
So true a guy in union had a interceptor was a big disappointment .The griffen on the other hand was a great car with the 271 hp motor it was fast look like a true sports car and was fast like a hot rod the 2 that were around back in the 60,s were hard to beat
A buddy of mine has a griffith/griffen whatever. He bought it in Fl. and hes trying to trace it back and find its history. We traced it back to an old body shop on Tower road in Gainesville fl. Thats where the trail gets cold. The car was raced hard,it has a 9'' ford in it now with ladder bars. I saw the car in the junkyard when i was a kid,1970 or so. It was wrecked then,but the engine was still in it,small block ford. Can anybody help trace this car?
QUOTE=tommy;5706595] 1965 Griffith. Same era as the Cobra. The one I knew about came with a 271 Hipo 289. I don't know if they all did but my friends did. They later changed the body style and went with the small Chrysler V8.[/QUOTE] Yes definately a Griffith. I used to work for a dealer that sold them. That was in 1967. I believe just before they over changed to the Mopar powered ones. The Fords were advertised as the fastest 0 to 60 production car at that time. I believe the claim was 3.6 sec. I remember them as being a real squirrely little car when you got on one. I think Shelby had the much better platform using the AC ch***is but the little Griffeth coupe had a mean look.
I have some old home movie footage of two Griffins racing at Connecticut Dragway circa 1965. If I remember right they had small Chrysler V-8s.
Sunbeam Tigers were little *** kickers, they were great fun to drive. But you did have to work them hard or they would bite you.
There was the griffin and there was also a griffith,the griffith was a italian made car built by jack griffith 600,it had a 9 inch ford,unibody,but was powered by a barracuda engine,original design was for a ford small block,he worked for carol shelby,,but ford pulled the contract for carol so the ford could not be used in jacks cars,so chrysler it was,only a handfull of these cars where built in long island ny,he went belly up soon after,,the remaining cars where turned into italias,etc..,,I restored 2 of them,including the black 1966 600 gt,,
Hey, The Griffith 600 was built on a unibody platform? Was this a Mopar A Body platform to match the 273?
NOPE,all by itself,actually if you seen the way the mounts where in the car you can tell it was a last minute change from ford to mopar,still it did run well,,i bet with a well built 289 and a toploader it would be a ball
Well I sure hope the Griffith & the Italias were more developed than the Apollo's were. The Apollo, driven at speed, handled, well , just like a Buick which is where the power train and suspension bits were sourced from. My '71 Jensen Interceptor @ over 4K curb weight rides like a cloud, but no one has ever confused it with a sports car. " Meanwhyle, back aboard The Tainted Pork "
See also TVR. Built around the same time. Some had Rover engines some had superchargers. Note the very short rear overhang.
Maybe Griffith is what a fellow had here in the late 1970's, I know it was Ford powered. I remember a story of it going up I684 at some stupid speed. How fast were they? Only saw it once and it didn't look at all like the short wheelbase Griffin.
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