V8 - American V8 Engines

American V8 Engines

A full decade after Britain's 1904 Rolls-Royce Legalimit, Cadillac produced the first American V8 engine, the 1914 L-Head. It was a complicated hand-built unit with cast iron paired closed-head cylinders bolted to an aluminum crankcase, and it used a flat-plane crankshaft. Peerless followed, introducing a V8 licensed from amusement park manufacturer, Herschell-Spillman, the next year. Chevrolet produced a crude overhead valve V8 in 1917, in which the valve gear was completely exposed. It only lasted through 1918 and Chevrolet would not produce another V8 until the introduction of the small block in 1955.

Cadillac and Peerless were one year apart again (1923 and 1924, respectively) with the introduction of the cross-plane crankshaft. Lincoln also had V8 cars in those years, as did Ferro, Northway (supplier to Cadillac), Cole (Indianapolis, and Jackson, Mississippi), Perkins (Detroit), Murray, Vernon, and Yale. Oakland, a division of GM, introduced an 85 hp (63 kW) 250 cu in (4.1 L) V8 with a 180° crankshaft in 1930–1931. In 1932, the Oakland marque was discontinued and the V8 was used in its companion marque, Pontiac, for one year. Pontiac dropped the V8 engine in 1933 and replaced it with its smoother running Silver-Streak straight eight.

Ford was the first company to use V8s en masse. Instead of going to an inline six like its competitors when something larger than an inline four was needed, Ford designed a modern V8, the Flathead of 1932. This flat head engine powered almost all larger Ford cars through the 1953 production year, and was produced until around 1970 by Ford licensees around the world, with the valve-in-block engine powering mostly commercial vehicles.

After World War II, the strong demand for larger status-symbol cars made the common straight-6 less marketable. Straight-8 engines have problems with crankshaft whip and require a longer engine bay. In the new wider body styles, a V8 would fit in the same space as a straight-6. Manufacturers could simplify production and offer the bigger engines as optional upgrades to base models.

In 1949, General Motors (GM) responded to Ford's V8 success by introducing the Oldsmobile Rocket and Cadillac OHV. Chrysler introduced their FirePower 331 cu in (5.4 L) hemi-head V8 in 1951. That year Studebaker introduced its V8. Buick followed in 1953, while Packard and GM's Chevrolet and Pontiac introduced V8s of their own in 1955. American Motors initially purchased V8 engines from Packard, but developed its own lower-weight, 600 lb (272 kg), design in 1956.