Thinking of restoring your classic car, but the engine is shot? Maybe you need a new high performance Ford crate engine from Shelby for your Cobra project, where should you look? Have you tried Amazon? Wait, what? Amazon? The first time I ran across their engine selection, I thought there must be some mistake, short blocks, long blocks, remanufactured engines, high performance engines, aluminum blocks, small blocks, big blocks, you name it, they’ve got it. And to think Amazon started out selling books.
The engine shown above is a big block Ford, displacing 526 cubic inches and built around an aluminum CNC machined ‘FE’ block, 750 horsepower, too, not some salvage yard special. If you want authenticity in that Cobra roadster, it’s perfect, not cheap, but hey, this is the real deal. Of course, most of us are looking for things a bit more affordable and they have plenty of great engines to choose from. How about a big block Chevy, or maybe you would prefer to just get a bare block (Made in the USA!) and build it yourself. Most of you probably know Amazon carries lots of parts and accessories, but engines like these surprised me. If your local speed shop doesn’t have what you need, if you even have a local speed shop anymore, all you need to do now is jump on your computer, head over to Amazon and then wait for the truck to arrive.
If you haven’t looked at Amazon as a source for this sort of thing, you really should. It’s almost unbelievable what they have and if you’re at all like me, you’ll find things you never would have expected to be there. It’s very cool.