For the primary few many years of the twentieth century, V8 engines have been finicky, costly issues reserved for low-production luxurious vehicles. Fancy pants Cadillacs and LaSalles have been powered by V8s, whereas extra proletarian automobiles like Ford’s Mannequin A and Chevrolet’s Common AD made do with inline fours and sixes. Ford modified all of that in 1932 with the introduction of the 221 cubic inch flathead V8.
The Ford flathead was revolutionary, however why? It wasn’t the primary automotive V8 — that was both Rolls-Royce’s extraordinarily limited-edition 3.5-liter engine from 1905 or, arguably Leon Levavasseur’s Antoinette V8. It wasn’t the largest (Cadillac L-heads have been greater), or essentially the most highly effective (the uncommon Cunningham V8 put down 90 horsepower in 1920), both. It was, nevertheless, easy, light-weight, dependable and low-cost, all of which have been extraordinarily on-brand for Ford on the time. It hit an automotive business dominated by small-displacement fours, inline sixes and supercharged straight eights like a hydrogen bomb, and would finally assist give beginning to mid-century scorching rodding.
Let’s go racin’!
Virtually instantly upon its introduction, gearheads have been racing Fords powered by the brand new flathead V8. In 1933, lower than a 12 months after their debut, flatheads have been setting data on the Elgin Nationwide Highway Race. In 1934, flatheads have been doing 109 mile-per-hour laps on the Indy 500, and flathead-powered racers took the rostrum on the first Daytona Seashore inventory automotive race in 1936. A vibrant aftermarket grew up across the flathead, offering go-fast components starting from efficiency manifolds and camshafts to superchargers and even overhead valve conversion cylinder heads. If you happen to had a flathead within the 30s and needed to make it go actual quick, the world was your oyster.
By the top of WWII, Ford’s flathead had been available on the market in a single type or one other for greater than a decade. Thousands and thousands of the best V8 mills Dearborn might produce had been stuffed into every thing from workaday sedans and vans to Avro Lancaster heavy bombers. As tens of millions of younger People returned residence from The Conflict, they wanted low-cost transportation to get them to their new jobs or GI Invoice-backed educations. Used, flathead-powered Fords have been low-cost and thick on the bottom, and newly demobbed GIs snapped them up wholesale.
The beginning of cool
Within the 50s, particularly after they have been discontinued in favor of the brand new overhead valve Y-block, flatheads have been a dime a dozen in scrapyards all around the nation. The supply and affordability of those cast-off flatheads, the sheer quantity of velocity components produced for them, and the elevated spending energy and leisure time of the rising postwar center class led on to the beginning of the recent rod motion as we all know it at the moment.
Flathead-powered scorching rods continued to be well-liked all through the twentieth century. Even with the rise of the arguably superior small block Chevy and Ford 351 mills, scorching rodders stored shoving flatheads into their creations on account of their availability and flexibility. Ultimately nevertheless, flathead shares started to dry up as they wore out or have been blown up by enthusiastic gearheads, and so they have been outdated by extra fashionable overhead valve mills.
Immediately, almost a century after its introduction, Ford’s flathead V8 continues to be a go-to alternative in sure segments of the recent rodding scene. That is very true with builders preferring extra conventional scorching rod kinds, or the wild-eyed grease monkeys who construct rat rods. Whereas scorching rodding tastes might change, evidently the trusty outdated Ford flathead won’t ever exit of favor.
