Was reading through some old car magazines and found an article on the history of the Ford Falcon.  Was surprised to learn that in 1960 Bill Stroppe created for Ford a "proto sprint" with a 1960 Mercury 312 and Cruise-o-matic.  The engine was modified for power (port and polish, overbored, different cam, etc.) and  several other modifications to the car were made.  The aricle doesn't give much more info---nothing on horsepower, what happened to the car, etc.  I'd guess there was a major performance difference though since the original Falcon engine was a 144 ci rated at 85 horsepower.  I found this to be an interesting historical tidbit so thought I'd share.