History The First Hood Scoops

I'm sure folks have been making some form of them since day one,but where were the first "Factory" hood scoops ? I know the old T-Birds had bulges
but not sure if the were fuctional , The 63 or so Pontiac with the SD scoop.
Then later Mopar with just about every type of scoop you can think of.
Were there any functional factory ones in the 50's

 

Interesting thought...........
I would guess they were another idea brought to the streets after WWII aircraft?

 

the early T bird "bulges" were functional in that they gave clearance for the funky old teapot carburetor.

54 merc had a scoop of sorts. Not functional.




57 Merc turnpike cruiser had scoops...for the passengers! but they were'nt on the hood

 

wonder how many roofs rotted out form that idea

 

I learned something about 4 months ago. A fellow showed up with an AACA show quality restoration of a 57 dual quad T bird. I was looking at the trunk and there was a small sheet metal piece in there with a decal on it. It said remove for summer operation (or something close to that) It was a removable block off plate for the hood scoop. I always thought the scoop was non-functional but apparently I was wrong.

 

Some 50's Packards had functional hood scoops.

 

Thunderbirds starting in '55 (and up to '66)had a functional hood scoop

 

Right: Packard Carribean had a wide hood scoop, '53-54. In '55-56, it was twin scoops. Not sure if they were functional, but I believe the '53-54 one was. Funny to think of stately Packard among the first with the 'muscle car' scoop.
Stude Hawk had a scoop starting in '56- I believe it's non-functional.
'52-54 Merc's 'scoop' had no opening.
'54 big Kaisers had a scoop.
There's a few other oddball/one-offs in the '50s that had hood scoops: '55 Bosley (1 built), '54 Edwards (2), '52 Excaliber J (4), '53 Fibersport, '52 Multiplex (1), '54 Storm. I'm sure there were more, plus a few foreign jobs in this era.

 

The '63 Super Duty Pontiacs had a functional hood scoop.

Came right out of the Ford parts catalog, they were originally used on Ford dump trucks. On the dump truck the scoop opening faced rearward, the Poncho had the opening facing forward.

Pontiac gave it their own part number, but they never used the grille that came with the scoop or the mesh piece behind it.

 

Kurtis... 'Ol Yeller(sp)...Ferrari... early Coopers(sport cars, not Minis) come to mind. Probably aircraft tech filtered down.

 

I remember reading somewhere that Ford offered the first functional "traditional front entrance" scoop sometime in the mid 50's on V8 [Y-block?] powered cars.

It was mis-understood when it came out... Sort of a "Why would you put a hole in a perfectly good hood" sort of thing.

Sorry I dont have any data to back this up, I'm just going off memory... I could be completely wrong.

 

Dad's 52 Desoto had one like this. Don't know if it was functional.

 

nash had a little scoop over the vent by the windshield. here is a 40,s model

 

Think thats more a fresh air vent,,noticed quite a few of those,,and the old pop up fresh air vents make me think Mopar Air Grabber

 

Anyone else? I'm intewrested in this one...

 

63 1/2 Falcon Sprints had them but they were for looks. HRP

 

They were not intended to be hood scoops, but if the chrome rockets are removed from a 57 Chevy, that's what you get. My 57 runs about 5 degrees cooler with the rockets out of the hood.

 

Here's the original platform for that Pontiac hood scoop on a 61 Ford




Although Pontaic did turn it around

 

Funny thing to note, the Ford dump trucks were 'Super Duty' trucks.

 

"Back in the Day", scoops were made out of human heads. As the cars aged into the beautiful stage we like to call "Patina", the flesh rotted away and the skull was all that remained. This one of the important artifacts of the Traditional Kulture. Sorry if this is not a factory option, but I am sure the stylist followed the Kulture.

 

I've seen those as well, I worked at a T-bird only restoration shop. You had to trim out a section of the scoop insert to make them work, I've seen the factory block-off plates but never a hood insert that was factory cut. Apparently they did come that way though.

65-67 GTO's had a nearly identical block off plate too, I've seen those, on the tripower cars there was a pan with a foam surround that you could close the hood over to make a sealed chamber, gave you a much more functional ram air effect.

 

that's friggin funny!
TP

 

I'm sure folks have been making some form of them since day one,but where were the first "Factory" hood scoops ? I know the old T-Birds had bulges
but not sure if the were fuctional 55-57 T Bird hood scoops were definitely functional , The 63 or so Pontiac with the SD scoop.
Then later Mopar with just about every type of scoop you can think of.
Were there any functional factory ones in the 50's

 

1958 Fairlane has a hood scoop. They came from the factory with a clear plastic insert that had the Ford crest inside. However, engine heat made short work of the inserts. A repop costs $60. People would remove the insert, and TAA-DAA!!!, functional hood scoop. Obviously this isn't a ram air type of scoop, but it cools the engine down nicely. Here's a pic of mine.

 

That Pontiac scoop was actually a Ford truck scoop. PMD bought 500 of them from Ford.

 

Your first post was to resurrect a year old thread with info that was already posted? How about an intro?

BTW, the 52 DeSoto scoop was functional.

 

The scoop on the Nash was for the, belive it or not, Air Conditioning System. Nash, as I recall were the first to offer this convenience, along with seats that folded down into beds!
BF

 

I had a '57 Ford F750 Big Job that was a small semi, it had a cool and functional scoop on it.. I wanted to put the hood and scoop on my '60 (and a '57 Grille too) but I got rid of the truck to make America's soup cans and sold the scoop for good $$ on evilbay..

 

Scoops off the old Ford trucks are the ones used on Super Duty Pontiacs

 

The 4V Ford trucks of the mid-50s had scoops. I believe it was the same scoop used on the T-birds. The later truck scoops of the 60s were used on Pontiacs, as mentioned.