I was just thinking about the "other" Flathead V-8 motor... The infamous Cadillac LaSalle motor, especially the 1938-1948 346 cubic inch variant that powered both pre and post-war Caddys and U.S. Army's M-5 and M-24 tanks. (The engine was backed by... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
If that doesn't get your traditional juices flowing, you just may as well quit. All bitchin hot rods!
There is also the cool factor of saying, "My hot rod is powered by a tank engine, what do you got?" Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
That would be AWESOME!!! I would love to see a couple of A roadsters go head to head. One with a big Lincoln, and the other with the Cad Flatty. There has got to be a way the HAMB can set that up.
Jive-Bomber, that's a great read! I met Walter last year, on the salt. I originally posted this on my build thread, so I hope you don't mind that I repost it here: Sometimes on the salt, the unexpected happens -you're thrashing in the pits, things haven't went right for a day or two, and it's frustrating. That happened to me this year-we were having fuel issues, and blew a freeze plug. We were all working to get the car back on the track, and I kept noticing a gentleman of Japanese descent watch us curiously, and he seemed pretty interested in the flathead. I got to a point where I could chat, so I made my way over to him.He introduced himself, and we chatted about the FlatCad for a while. Walter Nakamura was his name, and he owns the Meteor lakester-very probably the first Cadillac flathead powered dry lakes racer! Needless to say, I forgot what was going on in the pits, and chatted about the car his dad and 2 friends had built. Wow, what are the chances? This is some of the story about the car, that I 'borrowed' from elegantcars.com: The Meteor was raced at Muroc and hit 104 mph in 1940. Records show only 29 cars broke the 100 mph barrier in 1939.In 1940, three West L.A. high school buddies were obsessed with hot rods and dry lakes. George Nakamura, Dick Phippen, and Carl Hoogoian had little in common, except their interest in fast cars. Nakamura found the Meteor with its bird cage-like framework, which has riveted sections of aluminum scrap from Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach. It had two velocity stacks pointing skyward with a pair of Stromberg 97 carburetors. When Nakamura bought the race car, he drove on the streets of Culver City with its headlights buried inside the nose and 1939 Ford tail lights. He drove it regularly until a minor head-on collision sidelined it. Nakamura was slightly injured, but the Meteor was relegated to a yard because he was unable to pay the storage fee. The yard owner removed and sold the flathead engine in the Meteor. When the three friends were able to get the rest of the car back, they installed a 1937 Cadillac LaSalle V-8 engine, which still remains in the car six decades later. The lives of the three young men changed when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, except their friendship. By mid-1942, Nakamura and his relatives were interned with thousands of other Americans of Japanese descent at Amache Internment Camp in Colorado. His two friends were appalled by this. Nakamura was given a 72-hour notice to leave Culver City, so Phippen offered to store the Meteor. When Nakamura returned three years later in 1945, he started his life over again. Walter Nakamura, the elder Nakamura's son, often asked his dad about the Meteor, but his father refused to discuss it, possibly because he feared his son would be injured while racing it. After George Nakamura died, Phippen called Walter in 2003 and asked if he wanted to take his dad's car home. Walter was able to get the Meteor back on the road with the untouched patina of storage corrosion and dust. Walter Nakamura plans to bring the 1939 Lakester Meteor to Santa Barbara from his home in Pleasanton, California. <!-- / message --><!-- attachments -->
I've put many miles on my grandfathers 41 Cad coupe. The cool thing about this motor is the looooong stroke. It just chugs along. Grandpa's 41 has the hydramatic and the shift points are so close together that the thing is in high gear before you clear the intersection!
I had a '49 Cosmo coupe and that 337 Flattie was the most quiet, smooth running mill you've ever experienced- However, hard to get parts for and weighed a ton, like the Cad!
You guys need to check out Pete's thread on his "loadster". Looking forward to seeing his car on the beach at ROG next month!
The car was the DuNah-Goldman entry from Pasadena. It had a 346" '36 Cad for power. It ran 133.130 mph in '50 and 133.729 mph in '51 at the salt. It also ran 143.31 at the lakes in '50. This car was a '28-29 roadster body with a belly pan and race car nose without a grill opening
My T roadster project is a loose clone of the Berg/Wright roadster, only a later '38 322 rather than the earlier 355.
No, that photo is of a T roadster, unfortunately I do not know the name it may well be a progression of Du Nah entry but that image was taken at Bonneville 1954. Prior to '54 "D" class was the biggest displacement class. E class was first seen in '54 This is the 1950 Bonneville entry of George Du Nah you speak of, flat-Cad powered model A roadster
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