Cadillac V-16

The story of the Cadillac V-16 is the saga of not one but two colossal engines. The irony of the story is that these two luxury car powerplants, among the most remarkable the world has ever produced, were spawned during the world’s most far-reaching and destructive economic collapse.

Of course, during the heady days of the Twenties, when speculators in the stock market gave no thought to “how high is up,” the concept of a 16-cylinder engine for the ultimate in luxury machines seemed quite rational. The millionaires of the bathtub gin decade seemed more than willing to exhibit their wealth, and there were lots of car companies, in the United States and abroad, that were perfectly willing to help them in the endeavor.

So it seemed just another step in the advancement of the luxury car to assemble a 16-cylinder engine. After all, if eight cylinders were good, then 16 cylinders must be twice as good. It was as effortless as adding eight plus eight.

Mammoth multi-cylinder engines were nothing new in the aircraft business. Spurred on by the momentum of the Great War, Ettore Bugatti designed a 16-cylinder engine for aircraft use in 1917.   Before the war’s end, several luminaries in the post-war auto industry became engaged in a similar project for the U.S. Army Air Corps. Howard Marmon, the builder of the Marmon line of luxury cars, was in charge of the government’s feasibility study, and when he gave the high sign, the Duesenberg brothers, August and Fred, won the production contract. But before many of the engines could be supplied, the War to End all Wars ended, and the design went into the junk drawer.

As the Teens turned into the Twenties, there the idea remained dormant. The European luxury car makers, like Rolls-Royce and Hispano-Suiza, seemed perfectly satisfied with six-cylinder powerplants. Meanwhile, on this side of the giant pond, Packard offered its vaunted Twin Six V-12 and  Cadillac had  its clients a V-8 engine.  Stutz, Chrysler and Duesenberg competed in the luxury battle with straight-eights.

Engine unlike no other

When Larry Fisher took control of General Motors Cadillac division in 1925, he had a simple objective — to differentiate Cadillac from all the other high-priced marques that were crowding the marketplace. One way to do that was to assemble an automotive engine unlike anything ever seen before — a V-16.

To implement the project, Fisher turned to Owen Nacker, Cadillac’s head of engine development, who was already noodling with the idea of a V-16. Nacker drew up a design that wrung all the natural smoothness and power that could be derived from 16 cylinders by placing them at an angle of 45 degrees. To manufacture prodigious amounts of low-end torque, one exhaust and one intake valve were fitted per cylinder, activated by pushrods and rocker arms from a block-mounted camshaft.

Though frightening, the Cadillac V-16’s displacement was right in line with other luxury car engines of the day. With a 3 x 4-inch bore and stroke, the Cadillac powerplant displaced 452 cubic inches (7.4 liters), while the fashionable Rolls-Royce six cylinder had a displacement of 470 cubic inches (7.7 liters). The straight eight in the Duesenberg J displaced 420 cubic inches (6.9 liters), though it did boast four valves per cylinder and dual overhead cams.

Torque, smoothness, and so much more

Zenith output for Nance’s Cadillac V-16 was 165 horsepower at 3,500 rpm. Those are respectable figures for those low-compression,  low-octane days, but the real  objectives of the V-16 were smoothness and torque, and both were delivered in spades.

In the Twenties and Thirties, most ultra-luxury cars were sold as chassis and then built in with custom bodies by independent coach makers.  However, Cadillac in that period was blessed with the inimitable talents of Harley Earl, who was not just the division’s chief stylist but was also the founder of the styling studio design process that practically all auto companies use today.

Earl’s heavy hand on General Motors design would continue well into the Fifties, but as the Thirties opened, he was still relatively fresh  from California, where he supplied to the rather over-ripe tastes of silent movie stars and studio heads.   Delicacy was not their watchword.

Earl’s designs for the Cadillac V-16 reflect that grandiose version.  Some of the influences are European, most especially from Hispano-Suiza, but there is also a fore-square Americanism to the styles. Though a mammoth car with a wheelbase of 148 inches and a curb weight of more than three tons, the V-16 survives to avoid the leaden stodginess of its European counterparts. With a lilting swoop to its front and rear fenders, the V-16 looks light on its feet while at the same time feeling as considerable as an ocean liner.

Efforts to salvage V-16

The disaster of the V-16 is that it was a car tailor-made for the exuberance of the Twenties that was introduced after the stock market crashed in October 1929. Cadillac and its affiliated Fleetwood body works built nearly 3,000 of the cars in 1930, but production was cut back very sharply thereafter. Between 1933 and 1937, fewer than 350 V-16 Cadillacs were assembled.

While other luxury nameplates like Duesenberg, Peerless, Stutz, Cord,  and Pierce-Arrow reeled during the Depression, Cadillac had General Motors’ other divisions as a cushion against bankruptcy. But even Cadillac was not immune from the cost pressures brought about by the decade long economic slump, so Nicholas Dreystadt, who replaced Fisher as head of the division in the mid-Thirties, sought out ways of saving cash while maintaining the prestige of the V-16.

The result of his efforts was a completely new V-16 engine that offered comparable output to the original but was very different in most other respects. Rather than a 45-degree vee, the cylinder banks were grafted at a 135-degree angle, which retained the engine’s smoothness but made possible the installation of a single intake manifold between the banks. In addition, the crankcase and block  were cast as a single unit, saving further production costs.

With a displacement of 452 cubic inches (7.1 liters), the new V-16 was 250 pounds lighter than its predecessor and significantly less expensive to produce.  Beginning in 1937,  it was installed in a series of vehicles that were somewhat less recognized than the first series but still had a great deal of presence on the road.

Tagged with: Cadillac • General Motors • luxury car • vintage automobile

Filed under: Top Classic Cars