History Did Ford design the OHV before Chevy?

I think you've got your facts mixed up somewhere, this sounds like a load of horseshit to me. Damned Henway purists have to make up stories in order to make themselves feel better about the inept leadership at Henway Motors which lead to its demise.

Btw,, with some rather simple oiling and cooling revisions those v12s turned out to be dead nuts relaible, and could get reasonable mileage too.

They made so much power that the transmissions and rear ends of the time weren't up to the task. It was teh cost of developing a decent transmission that killed henway.

 

Ford had an OHV V8 in its truck line by 1952. It was for their heavy trucks.

 

Some good whoppers made it thru time. Like the 409 Chevy powered helicopter. And the Chevy Avalanche made it into production because the overnight office cleanup crew found the plans in a wastebasket and put them back on a desk, and the designer guy called in sick the next morning so Chevy went with production (I could believe this about the Aztec, though).

 

Pontiac guys say that Pontiac engineers did the SBC.What ever,but it's pretty obivious the SBC wasn't a Ford because it didn't have the big lump of a timing cover and bulkiness of early Ford OHV V-8's. In fact it looked nothing like the other V-8's from GM.Yup,the boring SBC looks like no other engine,imagine that

 

The only truth to that one is that the stamped steel rocker arm that sbcs (as well as Pontiac V8s) used was developed by a Pontiac engineer.

 

Ford did something for Chevrolet alright. They were the cornerstone of hot rodding, period, and they forced anyone including Chevrolet to up the ante if they wanted a piece of the performance market. There will be guys that will chime in and tell you how his Chevy 6 or Buick Straight 8 would outrun a Ford V8 and I'm sure there were examples of such BUT! There was no car line in the world that even came close to doing what the Ford V8 line did. Not only were the Flathead V8's rugged and responsive to modifications but the whole V8 car was a great platform to make into a hot rod or racecar. Look at a modern day stock car or sprint car and observe things like the torque tube and banjo style differential. How about the "wide 5" wheels? These all trace lineage back to V8 Ford driveline and chassis assemblies. The small block Chevy itself is an extension on the Flathead Ford V8. It subscribes to the same principles that made the Ford V8 great, compact, light, simple and cheap.

The entire aftermarket performance industry in America was born in response to Ford's 4 bangers at first, then all hell broke loose when the V8 came on the scene. Names? How about Clay Smith cams, Weiand, Edelbrock, Isky, Hilborn, to name a few. This whole thing was ignited by the existence of the Ford Motor Company and it's products. If you trace history, Detroit itself owes much to Ford. Cadillac has its roots in a company that was started in part by Henry Ford. The comment about the first Model T's having Dodge engines is purposely misleading. You see the Dodge brothers were parts suppliers to Ford and other companys. Some Model T engines were manufactured in part by the Dodge brothers machine company. Money from this and other ventures financed the creation of their own company called Dodge. A similar thing holds true for the Chevrolet brothers. They were engineers and racers. They gained quite a bit of their fame by making exotic racing parts for Ford Model T engines. The notariety of these ventures fostered a good name and reputation that General Motors banked on when they created Chevrolet car company.

Did Ford design the small block Chevy...... no way. Did the position that Ford and the Flathead Ford V8 in the minds of youthful performance oriented consumers spur it on. Absolutely! Chevrolet wanted a piece of the action. Don't believe me, maybe Zora Arkus Duntov will convince you in his own words......

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“THOUGHTS PERTAINING TO YOUTH, HOT RODDERS, AND CHEVROLET”

The Hot Rod movement and interest in things connected with hop-up and speed is still growing. As an indication: the publications devoted to hot rodding and hop-upping, of which some half dozen have a very large circulation and are distributed nationally, did not exist some six years ago.

From cover to cover, they are full of Fords. This is not surprising that the majority of hot rodders are eating, sleeping, and dreaming modified Fords. They know Ford parts from stern to stern better than Ford people themselves.

A young man buying a magazine for the first time immediatly becomes introduced to Ford. It is reasonable to assume that when hot rodders or hot rod-influenced persons buy transportation, they buy Fords. As they progress in age and income, they graduate from jalopies to second-hand Fords, then to new Fords.

Should we consider that it would be desirable to make these youths Chevrolet-minded? I think that we are in a position to carry out a successful attempt. However, there are many factors againt us:

1. Loyalty and experience with Ford.
2. Hop-up industry is geared with Ford.
3. Law of number-thousands are and will be working on Fords for active competition.
4. Appearance of Ford’s overhead V8, now one year ahead of us.

When a superior line of GM V8’s appeared, there where remarkably few attempts to develop these, and none too successful. Also, the appearance of the V8’s Chrysler was met with reluctance even though the success of Ardun-Fords conditioned them to the acceptance of Firepower.

This year is the first one in which isolated Chrysler development met with succsess. The Bonneville records are divided between Ardun-Fords and Chryslers.

Like all people, hot rodders are attracted by novelty. However, bitter experience has taught them that new development is costly and long, and therefore they are extremely conservative. From my observation, it takes an advanced hot rodder some three years to stumble toward the successful development of a new design. Overhead Fords will be in this stable between 1956 and 1957.

The slide rule potential of our RPO V8 engine is extremely high, but to let things run their natural course will put us one year behind-and then not too many hot rodders will pick Chevrolet for development. One factor which can largely overcome this handicap would be the availability of ready-enginered parts for higher output:

If the use of the Chevrolet engine would be made easy and the very first attempts would be crowned with succsess, the appeal of the new RPO V8 engine will take hold and not have the stigma of expensiveness like the Cadillac or Chrysler, and a swing to Chevrolet may be anticipated.This means the development of a range of special parts-camshafts, valves, springs, manifolds, pistons, and such-should be made available to the public.

To make good in this field, the RPO parts must pertain not only to the engine but to the chassis coponents as well. In fact, the use of light alloys and brake development, such as composite drums and discs, are already on the agenda of the Research and Development group.

These thoughts are offered for what they are worth-one man’s thinking aloud on the subject.

Signed: Z. Arkus-Duntov

dated: 12/16/53

 

That "Hemi in an airplane" was the IV2220 inverted V16 experimental Chrysler engine. The prop was driven off a gear train between two sets of 8 cylinders, right in the middle of the block.
I think the only time it actually flew was in the XP47H, which was a Thunderbolt used for a test mule. The P47 was the only high performance single engine plane that was big enough to carry the thing.

 

And that engine never was put into production because it didn't outperform the R2800 P&W 18 cylinder radial that was in the P-47.By the 1920's all Wright and Pratt and Whitney radials used a pure Hemihead.Flatheads left the aircraft engine design very early because they were not as fuel effecient as an OHV under constant load.I believe the last flattie aircraft engine was a 4 cylinder Continental of the 1930's used in the first Piper Cubs
I'm no Flathead guy but a nice Ford V-8 always gets my attention.

 

Finally---some one got around to Zora's manifesto---

 

Ummm..... Yeah!

 

I have articles written by Frank McGurk and Bill Fisher when they were the names in GM inline 6 cylinder engines after WW2. They mention how the 270 GMC when modified for street use makes more power than a full race Ford V-8 thats barely streetable.They claim,and they did build many engines,even the lowly Chevy 216 could be build to match any Ford V-8 of the same size for power.But you see very few inlines,and a lot of Ford V-8's.
But like the article above mentions,the Ford had the tradition in the hot ord crowd.And I bet many preferred the V-8 sound over an inline 6 .

 

You believe everything you hear???

 

I am amazed that all these myths have survived, and are being embellished every time they are re-told.
I won't add to the Ford/Chevy/(insert manufacturer here) bashing. All I have to say is, do a search for "Essex Tri-Directional", and you'll know the truth.

 

Originally Posted by texasred ​

At last years lone star round up, i was told by an old guy that HENRY was a cross dresser, im pretty sure it is true i mean who would bullshit about that

The story that Louis Chevrolet was inspired to come up with the Bow Tie logo by looking at wallpaper in France is B.S. too...He came up with the idea after seeing Henry's bow tie dress at a banquet...

 

This is one of the best threads ever. I enjoy it because the posts really give me a good laugh.

 

It is funny indeed
One thing we should remember though, is that Henry Ford, and his ideas when it comes to serial production, and his views on a mixed economy (capitalism mixed with socialism) has been very important in shaping the whole western world as it its today, and his production methods, adapted by most of the rest of the US, and even in Russia before the war, helped us fight the Nazi's during WW2 (withouth mass-produced russian tanks and mass produced american freight ships, us Europeans would have been f**ked. )
Thank you for the free world, mr. Ford
As for chevy, yes, the sbc is a great design, and anyone loking for cheap power is still very right in choosing one. (it's a b**ch to do an oil change on though, how do you forget designing in a plug to drain oil...)

edit: even Hitler was a great fan of Ford, and the beetle was his tribute, to Ford, so I guess without Ford the Nazi's wouldnt have all that power in the first place

 

I bet an electronic ignition and fuel injection will wake that puppy up...

 

Had a guy telling me about his son's Ford Impala that he was restoring. Wonder what motor he was using.

 

yeah, that R2800 already had years of R&D in it, so it was pretty tough to beat. even better was the XP72 that was built around the r2800's big brother the R4360. the non supercharged prototype ran 480mph and was expected to reach 540mph fully developed with supercharger. just a short range hot rod though. war effort concentrated on long range escorts so it was never built.

this is getting into the politics that I KNOW ryan hates, but Ford was a big supporter of the nazi party, even financially, so there are more than one reason why they wouldn't have had all that power without him.

 

My history book says Ford was a Pacifist and only got interested in war production when he saw a profit to be made..................

I'm thinking that by WW2,General Motors was by far the largest automotive company in the world ???
All US auto makers turned out war materials in unfucking believable amounts.Ford,Chevy Lincoln,Stude ,Packard and Caddy made aircraft engines under license for Allison,P&W,Wright,Rolls Royce, etc.I think it was over 1/2 million engines.All the parts were made in factories ,then assembled,100's of inspections,then test run on a dyno,then partially disassembled for inspection,then assembled again for aircraft use.This was primarily done by unskilled labor in the US.

 

Who in the HELL are the Chevrolet Bros????? Louis Chevrolet was the chief mechanic of the guy who financed the car company from its inception. I never new any reference to any Brothers. Where is this info coming from?

 

Story as I understood it is what became the Chevy small block was designed by Pontiac but GM "reassigned" it to Chevrolet and the engineers had to go back to the drawing board. But I've never seen any hard evidence to indicate that.

 

As well they should cock n bull always trumps truth.

Remember if you can't dazzel 'em with truth baffle 'em with bullshit.

There are a lot of stories about who invented what first and so on.

The one I like best and may very well be true but no way to prove it is the one about henry not wanting to put a V-8 or any V configurstion motor in a car because he thought the bottom side of the cylinder would wear out first. Is it a true story? well it could be, no way to tell unless you could come up with a recording of the conversation or some very old company memo.

Probably confused with the Dodge Bros who at one time were Ford designers.

Peugot of course. It was an experimental SVT version of the Ford Impala.

 

Actually, Cadillac DID have its roots with Henry Ford, the Detroit Auto Company. After Ford was fired, the company was reorganized and given the name Cadillac (easy to verify but to make it easy on you, one source for this info is Those Wonderful Old Automobiles by Floyd Clymer, page 120)

Robin Rish: "Who in the HELL are the Chevrolet Bros????? Louis Chevrolet was the chief mechanic of the guy who financed the car company from its inception. I never new any reference to any Brothers. Where is this info coming from?"

You're joking, right? Surely you're joking. No way you have never heard of the Chevrolet Brothers, Arthur, Louis, and Gaston, who were famous race car builders and drivers, using the Frontenac name for their race cars?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Chevrolet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Chevrolet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_Chevrolet

I never cease to be absolutely dumbfounded by the level of ignorance from "car people."

This isn't obscure information. It's all readily available in reference books and/or on the internet.

 

Sorry guys, but the sbc was designed a built by a guy named MEL. He later created the MEL series of engines...... It's all true I tell you.......................

 

there's much more to it than profit. check out Henry ford and the Dearborn Independent, the book he published and his service cross from the nazis, The "Service Order of the German Eagle" was a diplomatic and honorary award given to prominent foreigners, particularly diplomats, who were considered sympathetic to Nazism

I've never read it but supposedly hitler also praises Ford in his book mein kampf, finding ford's views and published works inspirational.

like I said, it's been gone over before and leads down a bad path!


as far as auto production and the war, see "willow run" enough said

 

Hey got a buddy called Big Mel, for reasons that I wlll never know. We had a door beside the garage door that is too small for Big Mel to get through so we call it the Mel Door. That actually is true which is a damned shame because I had determined to not say a damned true thing on this entire thread.

 

As far as i can remember you are correct, one guy who was an editor or writer for some frod newspaper or book, that Henry approved witouth really reading it, was more of a supporter of the Nazi party.
But let's remember, the Nazi's did turn a whole country around in very few years, and had lots of supporters even outside Germany before WW2. Hindsight is always 20/20 I guess...

No, politics , I just like to rub it in VW-lovers faces that Hitler loved the model-T and wanted to make one for the Germans.

And by WW2 most of america had adapted to Ford's way of mass production. What really set Ford back so much was the fact that Ford didn't really want progress, unless it was for production eficciency, so he stayed with the model-T too long, and let the competitors in on the market. Again hindsight, and so on...

 

My history books say Ford did not want to get into war production but Bernard Baruch gave him a choice: go into war production or I will send US Army in two days to confiscate your company.

 

which is similar to what happened to his production lines in germany. except for the fact that the germans paid him for them