1st V-8 engine

[zooomm]

Hi,could someone tell me the 1st car company that produced the 1st V-8,that I believe was in march 1932?Thanks,Keith

[RocketDude]

It was Chevrolet, in 1917.

[K8096]

Cadillac had a V-8 in 1915, but I don't think that was the first either.

[CarlLaFong]

DeDion had a V-8 around 1910-1912

[West Peterson]

Keith.

Ford came out with the first mass-produced V-8 around March of 1932. But it certainly wasn't the first V-8 as pointed out above.

[K8096]

Why wouldn't you consider the V-8 Cadillac of the teens mass produced? I don't have my production figure book handy, but they had to make several thousand of them.

[Guest BruceW]

I read that Rolls Royce had a V8 engine in 1905 but it was not mass produced and not continued until decades later. I've always read that Cadillac's 1915 V8 is considered as the first mass produced V8 engine. The sources I have seen on the net indicate a production figure of 20,404 for Cadillac in 1915.

[1937hd45]

Welcome to the AACA Forum. Darracq had a V8 powered race car in 1905, click on the link for the info. http://www.lortim.demon.co.uk/darracq/index.htm

[Amphicar BUYER]

The Forney museum in Denver has was is purported to be the 1st production V-8. It is a 1904 vintage car I believe. I will give them a call and get more info.

[lking]

The King Motor Car Company produced their first V-8 engine autos in 1915. This was about 3 months after Cadillac came out with a V-8. The Cadillac V-8 only lasted for a partial year until 1917, dut to it burning too much oil. The King continued to produce the V-8 and in 1915 produced about 4,000, in 1916 they produced about 6,000. They called it the first "Popular Priced V-8"

[mrpushbutton]

Wasn't the '32 Ford V-8 the first such engine with a one piece-all cast iron block?, as opposed to cylinder banks that bolted on to a crankcase. Of course, growing up in Detroit we were told that Henry Ford invented the car, the assembly line AND the V-8 engine. A little bit of reading fixed that.

[West Peterson]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Why wouldn't you consider the V-8 Cadillac of the teens mass produced? I don't have my production figure book handy, but they had to make several thousand of them. </div></div>

Let me modify my statement, as 20,000 copies of the Cadillac engine is high volumn for the time. I guess what I should have said is that the 1932 Ford V8 was the first mass produced V8 affordable to the masses.

And when Keith mentioned the date of March 1932, I knew right away he was thinking of the Ford, as that's when it was introduced with production for the year reaching almost 300,000.

Calendar year production for Cadillac in 1915 was around 20,000 (which would have included some 7,000 1916 cars). Model year (for 1915) was around 13,000.

[Guest De Soto Frank]

While not the first, didn't Apperson also have a V-8 in the 'teens?

There was also the Standard eight, made in Pittsburg by a subsidiary of Standard Steel that had a 331 cid V-8...

Glen Curtiss also had V-8 aero-engines in his planes pretty early-on...

c. 1912 ?

[K8096]

While this won't count as the first V-8, the Crawford Museum in Cleveland used to have an all original 1909 Mercedes chassis with a 1913 Hispano Suiza V-8 aircraft engine installed in it, built for racing. Talk about a hairy looking car! As with many of the great cars they used to have, they sold it a few years ago.

[1937hd45]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">While this won't count as the first V-8, the Crawford Museum in Cleveland used to have an all original 1909 Mercedes chassis with a 1913 Hispano Suiza V-8 aircraft engine installed in it, built for racing. Talk about a hairy looking car! As with many of the great cars they used to have, they sold it a few years ago. </div></div>

That is truely a GREAT car, after winning a Grand Prix for the Mercedes factory it was sold to Spencer Wishart of Philadelphia, Pa. and driven by him to 4th place in the first INDY 500 in 1911. Larry Beals installed the Hisso V8 and raced it up till the mid 1920's. It is now in Germany and a restoration to its original factory form is planned. I got to see it before it was shipped over, and it is a very impressive car, if it was mine I'd have left it just as it was when last raced.

[oldcarfudd]

After Cadillac introduced the V-8 production engine, many other makers followed. I had a 1916 Briscoe V-8, restored by Tom Reese, that had a little 200-cubic-inch OVERHEAD-VALVE V-8 produced by the Ferro Corporation in Cleveland. When it wasn't snapping axles, it was scary-fast. I believe Scripps-Booth used the same engine.

[ThomasBorchers]

DeDion produced the first street passenger car with a V8 engine. It was in 1910. Probably just one of these 1912 DeDion DM 20 CV exist and : This one is at the moment for sale. I know this car. It is absolutely amazing. 1912 DeDion V8 for sale.

Here a Photo :

Greetings

Tom

[Aanderson44]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Wasn't the '32 Ford V-8 the first such engine with a one piece-all cast iron block?, as opposed to cylinder banks that bolted on to a crankcase. Of course, growing up in Detroit we were told that Henry Ford invented the car, the assembly line AND the V-8 engine. A little bit of reading fixed that. </div></div>

No,

The famous flathead Ford V8 was preceded by a few years by the Oakland and Viking V8's, which had one-piece block/crankcase castings.

Art

[1937hd45]

Note the cam rocker and valve layout on the 1930 Oakland V8, one of these placed 11th in the 1930 INDY 500.

[nearchoclatetown]

37, in the drawing it appears as though the intake valve spring is as an atmospheric or poppet spring would be. Is that so? Any article with the pics? It seems awful late for that kind of technology.

[ronbarn]

First US V8 - Marmon in 1906. The 65 HP engine was put in a 128 inch wheelbase and shown at the New York Automobile Show in December, 1906 with a price tag of $5000. Noone was interested and the car never went into production. When Marmon returned to the eight cylinder engines that stayed with the straight-8 and did not return to the V configuration until the SIXTEEN.

[Guest De Soto Frank]

Thanks for this one Thomas... I wish my German were better, so that I could better read the ad's history on the car.

The wheels and tires look mighty "beefy" for a brass era car... were the wheels and tires updated at some point ?

[Dr Morbius]

I believe I got you all beat! Yes , Marmon was the first in America in 1906 - but the very first V-8 in the world [can't say for the rest of the Universe] was built by Clement Ader {a frenchie} for the Paris-Madrid race of 1903.

The very next V-8 was another race car in 1905 , the 24 litre over head valve Darracq [whatever happened to them?] and I believe Rolls-Royce in late 1905 had one too.

.......................Steve

[Guest bkazmer]

Darracq merged with Talbot. If you follow that geneology, it passes through Simca and Chrysler Europe. (Omni sedans of the early 80's were sold as Talbot)

[mlander]

Léon Levavasseur (1863-1922). Levavasseur's early training was as a painter but he quickly turned to engineering instead, much to European aviation's benefit. In 1903 he designed an unsuccessful biplane, but in the same year he produced an innovative light engine. The 24 hp and 50 hp versions of the Antoinette featured evaporative cooling and fuel injection, and were designed specifically with aviation in mind. The motors powered both Santos-Dumont and Gabriel Voisin's early designs and so formed the bedrock of European success. In 1907, Levavasseur was the designer behind the Gastambide-Mengin monoplane, and it was this design which formed the basis of his successful and elegant Antoinette IV of 1909. In that year, Levavasseur's friend Hubert Latham almost snatched glory from Blériot by crossing the Channel first in an early IV. The type subsequently enjoyed widespread popularity. In 1911, Levavasseur submitted his futuristic Monobloc Antoinette for military trials, but the excellent concept was marred by insufficient engine power. It failed to fly and the Antoinette Company's fortunes declined, with bankruptcy following. But Léon Levavasseur's place in history was already assured

Léon Levavasseur 1863-1921

http://www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2002/dec2.htm

http://www.enginehistory.org/before_1925.htm

http://www.wwi-models.org/Photos/Engines/Antoinette/index.html

The Antoinette engine was designed and built in France by Léon Levavasseur. Named after the designer's daughter, it was Europe's most widely used engine until 1909-1910. The first Antoinette engine dated from about 1901 and was used in a speedboat. By 1905, Levavasseur had produced a water-cooled engine with eight-cylinders arranged in a 90-degree "V" and with direct fuel injection. It was safe, strong, and fairly powerful, generating 50 horsepower (37 kilowatts) and weighing about 110 pounds (50 kilograms). Its power-to-weight ratio was not surpassed for 25 years.

1902 Finally, You Can Have a V-8

The first working V-8 engine was patented in France by French engine designer Leon-Marie-Joseph-Clement Levavasseur. The engine block was the first to arrange eight pistons in the V-formation that allowed a crankshaft with only four throws to be turned by eight pistons. Today, V-8 engines are extremely common in automobiles that need powerful motors.

V-8 engines are a relatively common, powerful motor that is found in many large sports utility vehicles and pick-up trucks. A French engine designer named Leon Marie-Joseph Clement Levavasseur (can you imagine having a name that long?!) patented the first V-8 engine in France on December 2, 1902.

Dec 02 The first working V-8 engine was patented in France by French engine designer Leon-Marie-Joseph-Clement Levavasseur

Edit August-18-2006-The Antoinette was a short-lived French automobile manufactured by a builder of airplanes and aircraft engines between 1906 and 1908. The company, based in Puteaux, showed a car with a 32hp V-8 engine and hydraulic clutches instead of a gearbox and differential at the 1906 Paris Salon; the next year, a 16hp four and a 30hp V-8 were also offered.

A 50 hp Antoinette engine powered the first airplane to take off under its own power and fly for 100 meters, the Santos-Dumont 14-bis, in 1906

M.L. Anderson