Hot Rods who started the Caddy trend

One of my buds (Rod Long) ran a Cadillac motor in a '34 Ford coupe dirt track car in the late '50s - early '60s in East Tennessee.

Buckshot40

 

I wouldn't exactly call Cad Flatheads in HOT RODs a "trend". especially when compared to the OHV ones.

 

Get a copy of "They Call Me Mr 500" Andy Granatelli's autobiography. I just finished it again for the umptheenth time.

 

Most people can't tell a '55 331 from a 365 - they are virtually identical externally. The starter location is not different on the 331 vs the 365 - both blocks have no provision for starter mounting. Using an Olds manual trans is probably where the driver's side starters come in, and that's not necessarily specific to the engine being a 365 vs a 331...

I think January of '49 has to be pretty close to the first... That story is hard to beat.

Ed Iskendarian supposedly ran a 331 in one of his land-speed roadsters. I know he made whole bunch of adjustable rocker arms specifically for the 331 shaft rocker system. So many that I can still occasionally find a set of unused NOS ones floating around. But I don't think that was until 52 or 53.

I'm betting the very first was a Cadillac engineer, dealership mechanic, or coachbuilder. I think it is highly likely that there was more than 1 331 in a lightweight non-Cadillac body, before the first '49 Cadillac was sold to a member of the public by a dealership.
But that's just a guess

 

awesome info

 

Stay focused! It won't be long until Evel and Dreddybear get to you.

But yes OHV Caddy's are a hot set-up, for sure... I can see this thread gaining momentum.

 

Could this be the first Fordillac? Probably not since I just installed it in my 48 Ford a few years ago, but it might be one of the first overhead Cad. engines built. It came out of Chicago. Built in the '50s.

 

nice motor

 

I don't have a pic on this computer but I saw a 37 Ford coupe at the Cumberland MD show. It looked stock but looked like a survivor.

Well after close inspection and talking to the owner it had a 49 Caddy motor put in. I forget if it was 49 or 50 that it was put in but the Caddy was wrecked shortly after it was bought.

the guy was a shine runner and wanted more power.

The car was full of cool stuff. It had a cool little Pontiac accesory fuse box on the firewall. It had a columbia 2 speed rear with a manual shifter for it.

Cool car with a cool story
Clark

 

What made Cadillac motors popular in Hot rods was power. There were no sports cars, musclecars, and no aftermarket speed parts for most of early hot rodding. Speed was for the affluent, and Cadillacs were big, powerful cars reserved for those who could afford them.

It was a natural fit to put a Cad motor into a Hot Rod. Big engine + little car. That was part of the rebelliousness of Hot Rodding in the early days. Kids with fast cars. It was huge controversy back then for auto makers to "endorse reckless driving" by selling inexpensive, fast cars.

The original OHV Cadillac V8 in '49 was a huge advancement for the time period. It was years before Chrysler, Ford, and Chevrolet were able to answer with the same sort of modern engine designs. Cars like Dodge, Pontiac, and Chevy were stuck with flathead 6's and straight 8's at the time. A flathead ford in 1949 was a dated design and had about 110 HP. The caddy motor had 160 HP and was absolutely untapped with regards to power potential.

 

i did

 

Thanks Brent I am back on track!!! I am sticking with the engine that's in the '35....now I just have to find a roadster for the Cadillac engine....focus?

 

Allard did.

 

come over to the dark side. that 35 NEEDS a caddy mill to be right

you can find another cad when you find the roadster

 

I'd say that's about as close to the true story as you can get. Caddy powered shoebox Fords seemed to be around since right after both came out for sale and were usually called Fordalacs back in the 50's. I'd bet that guys were pounding on the door of the wrecking yard cash in hand every time a new Caddy, Olds or Chrysler hit the local wrecking yards.

 

In 1950, Earl Muntz installed Cadillac engines in the first 26 Muntz Jets. When GM saw that he was using the Cadillac name to advertise and help sell his cars, they pulled the plug on furnishing new engines to him ...

 

Harley Earl or Ed Cole in 1949

I am sure the OP thinks the trend might have been started by some trendy hipster in 2004

 

Me and my Uncle, who was the hot rodder of the family, had a discussion about this once many years ago and I still remember it. Apparently when the first Cadillacs with the OHV engine came out they were about the hottest thing on the road and he bought one of the first he could get his hands on, a Coupe with a manual transmission and he traded his '48 in on it. My grandfather, his brother, gave him a lots of crap for not getting a Hydramatic.

He had about the fastest car around at the time as most Caddys were Hydramatics he said.

As he told me a few months after he got the car "some little shit" in a Ford outran him. Apparently the guy was running a Cadillac engine. That was enough for my uncle, he had "some place in the city", which would be Manhattan, "mill the heads, grind the cam and bore it out" as he told me. Apparently that got it to easily break 110 miles per hour and made it noticeably faster.

He did mention that he blew the motor up driving back from Philadelphia one night (knowing him he was flying). He said that since he wanted to have the next motor "built real hot" that he figured he could get one from a junk yard. Nothing doing, apparently as soon as a wrecked Cadillac came into a yard the yards had people waiting to buy them.

 

I know most of you are talkin' about overhead valve Cadillac-powered hot rods, but since the OP didn't specify, here's a flathead Cadillac-powered '32 roadster just for the hell of it. It ran a one-off blower built by John Beverage. I love this car.







And here's the Bob Wright - Don Berg '27 T roadster which also had the John Beverage blower on it..on a 1934 Cadillac engine. The roadster was built in 1947.