Car lovers mistakenly claim the V8 as their own. NEIL DOWLING reports

IT was up in the air for over a decade before car makers recognised the performance benefits of the aircraft engine dubbed the V8.
The design – simply, V for its end-on plan shape and eight for the number of cylinders – was first patented in 1902 by French aircraft maker Leon Levavasseur and used in planes and speedboats from 1904.
Levavasseur’s engine layout was the result in creating a lightweight, compact yet powerful powerplant for his aircraft.
He named the engine Antoinette after the daughter of his financial backer and produced a range of units up to the 37kW V8 that weighed 86kg including cooling water – a power to weight ratio unmatched for 25 years.
Interest in the engine picked up after it pushed a plane to a new altitude record of 3600 feet in 1910 and was then used to power aircraft from French maker Voisin and Renault.
Though small numbers were transferred to limited edition and specialised sports cars, it wasn’t until 1914 that Cadillac became the first company to mass produce the automobile V8.
In its first year, the General Motors division of Cadillac sold 13,000 cars with the 5.4-litre L-head engines and subsequently became a predominant user of the V8 engine.
Another General Motors division, Oldsmobile, added a 4-litre V8 to its model range in 1916. Chevrolet, then an independent car maker, introduced a 4.7-litre V8 in 1917 but one year later dropped it from the range when the company was merged with GM. Chevrolet didn’t make another V8 until 1955.
Aircraft companies meanwhile continued to use the V8 with its biggest manufacturer being Hispano-Suiza. The Swiss-based company licensed its V8 single overhead cam aviation engines – with dual ignitions and in differing displacements for outputs from 112kW to 225kW – to companies in the UK, Spain, France, Italy and the US.
Almost 50,000 “Hisso” V8 engines were built during World War I and are claimed to have powered about half of all Allied military aircraft during that war.
In the 1920-1930 period there were V8s from car makers including Lincoln and Oakland – the latter, a division of GM, had a 63kW 4.1-litre engine – up to 1932 when the Oakland brand was discontinued and the V8 was used in cars from its sister company, Pontiac, but for only one year as Pontiac replaced it in 1933 with its smoother-running Silver-Streak straight eight.
Ford is credited as the first company to extensively use the V8.
It simply cancelled its six-cylinder programs, leap-frogging from its existing four-cylinder units straight to a range of V8s.
Ford’s “Flathead” V8 of 1932 powered almost all large Ford cars through to 1953 and was still being made until about 1970 by Ford licensees around the world.

Ignoring six-cylinder engines, at least for a few decades, worked well for Ford as the world entered a new era of personal freedom and increased wealth after World War II.
The more powerful V8 engine could fit into the engine bay once occupied by a six-cylinder engine and create cars that became a strong status symbol for its owners.
Car maker could also simplify production and offer the V8 as an optional upgrade to base models.
In Australia, the V8 engine has been made by Holden and Ford performance divisions – respectively Holden Racing Team and Holden Special Vehicles and Ford Performance Vehicles – since the late 1960s.
While Australian V8s were created mainly by using a US-made block then adding Australian heads, pistons and exhausts.
Exceptions were the small-block Holden V8 – the 4.2-litre 253, 5-litre 308/304 and 5.7-litre 350 – and the 1970 British Leyland alloy small-block V8 that, at 4.4-litres powered the Australian-made P76 sedan.
The Holden small-block was an all-Australian designed and manufactured cast-iron 90-degree pushrod overhead-valve engine, introduced in 1969 and ending life in 1999.
It was used , in a variety of Holden models including the Torana, Kingswood, Commodore and Monaro.
The only V8 engine now made in Australia is the 5-litre unit built by FPV for its Falcon-based range. It is the combination of US-sourced and locally manufactured parts.
Ford does not have a V8 in its Australian-made passenger-car Falcon range – a far cry from the 1970s when Ford was literally a powerhouse of V8 production.
Holden’s V8 comes complete from GM in Canada.
The US-made Cleveland V8 range ceased in the early 1970s and Australia imported the V8’s tooling to make a local version of the 351 and the Australia-only 302 Cleveland.
These Australian-built engines were also sold to De Tomaso for its Pantera and Longchamps models.
Ford ceased production of these V8s in 1982. The last Cleveland-powered Falcon was the XE range which comprised about 1400 of the 302s and 409 of the 351s.