Engine designer Harry Mundy had been working on two projects for Jean Daninos' Facel S.A.. One design was an all-new quad-cam V6 displacing under 3.0 litres. The other was a new DOHC cylinder head to replace the failure-prone original on the 1.6-litre inline four Pont-à-Mousson engine used in the Facellia. Financial problems at Facel kept either engine from reaching production, but when Chapman found out about the smaller engine he commissioned Mundy to adapt the Facellia design to the Ford engine block. Mundy's design for Lotus comprised an aluminium cylinder head and an aluminium front cover and its back plate assembly containing the water pump and the camshaft drive chain.