Alternative history: Henry Ford produces Merlins in US

[tomo pauk]

What makes you so sure? Those same Merlin engines could end up in some other aircraft type.

No way, I've said it's P-51B and the USAAC Ford will listen to me and nobody else. As always.

 

[wuzak]

If the time line for US-built Merlins can be shifted 3 months earlier than a historical time line, that would mean P-51B (or what-ever would be called) would enter the fray in Sept 1943, rather than Dec 1943. Of course, if the USAAC bras introduces them into as an offensive tool together with B-17s that early. By that time the P-47 is also fitted with drop tanks.
Prospects for the LW don't seem bright in this scenario.

Surely the P-51B would have become operational at the same time because the issue is not the production of Merlins, but the development of the two stage 60-series - which would not have been sped up by earlier US production.

Also, how long before Packard production was the 2 piece block/head developed? Packard built the two piece from the start of its production, while Rolls-Royce and the other factories in the UK soldiered on with the one piece design until the switchover to the 6-series.