[Dwight Southerland]

SSDiv6 - While a Ford Performance Manual is a noteworthy publication, it hardly satisfies NHRA's nor history's requirement for documentation. The documentation that NHRA Tech has available and that is used as their reference includes what was submitted by the manufacturers to NHRA via request and via "official" publications from the manufacturers.

While I am not sure about the 1966 year model, the 1967 solid lifter 427 cars have been raced with automatic transmissions since their introduction. It just so happens that the collective social mentality of the racer group who campaigned them was predominantly ruled by people with stick shift preference, as was the majority of Stock and Super Stock racing during the 1960s and 1970s, so you do not see many. Dick Simon started racing a 1967 Fairlane 500 XL convertible with a 427-410 engine and automatic transmission in1973 and the amount of research that went into the verification of that combination for NHRA competition was extensive. Lots of people questioned the legality of that car over a period of years, even into the 1980s, yet NHRA substantiated its legality time and again. Supposedly, Dick's car was an assembly line car that was ordered as regular production offerings and Dick purchased the car from the original owner.

Some of the confusion happens due to the statement that DeuceCoupe made that "Ford apparently LISTED the auto trans but never built any that way, and that maybe why NHRA accepts it." If you look at the Class Guide in all the manufacturers for the pre-1967 cars, you will see legal combinations available that the manufacturers likely never built. It is the requirement that allowed Richard Charbonneau to race the 427 Fairlane station wagon, the many Max Wedge station wagons and possibly other oddball cars that I am not familiar with. Part of the reality of such combinations is that until the 1970s, there were few "purpose built" Stock Eliminator race cars, so 99% of the cars that showed up to race were assembly line combinations and few questioned the legality of them, especially when they were in the Class Guide. The Tri-Five Sedan Deliveries and four-speed cars muddied the waters for us all, however, and it has been a fight to maintain accuracy ever since.


DeuceCoupe - The 327-275 equipped Chevelles are not the same animal as the 327-325 engines. It's like comparing a 396-325 with a 396-375. Also, the 1968 Chevelle 396-375 is listed with an automatic transmission, whether it was ever available or not.

During the 1960s and up into the 1970s, GM and Ford had little reason to develop high performance automatic transmissions, since enough market demand was not there. Also, warranties and service were always issues for the high performance combinations so they limited the availability of automatic combinations with their hot rod engines. MoPar developed their automatic transmissions hot rod combinations mostly for drag racing and the success there carried over to their production cars. But, looking at their production cars on the street, there were no radical spec’ed high performance engines built for until the late 1960s. But even then, the Street Hemi had mild drivability characteristics compared to a rowdy high-cammed small block Chevy. Chevy's (and other GM products) high performance engines were directed to the street hot rodder, however, and the engineering had to be directed toward what their dealers and customers would be able to deal with. Long duration cams, finicky carburetors and such did not lend themselves to customer satisfaction in a daily driver basis with the crummy automatic transmissions they had. So one way to limit the customer base and reduce the potential complaints was to make those engines available only with manual transmissions. They didn’t want Joe Average to be lured into thinking that buying a car with an engine that required an enthusiast’s level of attention would be okay with the wife if it had an automatic transmission. That practice goes way back into the 1950s Corvette engines and continued for a long time. Ford tended to follow the same thinking, except for rare considerations, so the Boss 302, Boss 351, 289-271, etc. were manual transmission engines only.

So, to consider that the 327-325 or the 327-350 (same engine, different carb) was ever available with an automatic transmission does not fit the historical practice of GM. The only concession of those engines was that they had hydraulic lifters, which was a first for a high performance Chevrolet, but not the automatic transmission.