Introduced in May 1946, the Baab-Fox .604 cuin. racing engine is one of the rarest of the many such motors to have originated in America during the early post-war era. The engine was the joint product of model car racer and hobby shop owner Cliff Fox and model car racer, magazine Editor and manufacturer W. Lloyd Baab, both of Oakland, California. Although adaptable to other applications, the engine was primarily intended for model car racing. 

The Baab-Fox .604 used a form of the four-port cylinder porting arrangement seemingly originated by Ira Hassad and later popularized by Cox, among others. The transfer ports were fed through an unusually convoluted and rather restrictive by-pass system, which limited the engine's performance. Consequently, although the engines were very well made, they could not match the competition in performance terms, fading from the scene as rapidly as they had arrived after only a handful of examples had been produced. Most surviving examples (like that illustrated) are very well-made replicas produced by Profi in the Ukraine for Woody Bartelt.  The full story of the Baab-Fox .604 may be found elsewhere on this web-site.