V16. Let me repeat that again: V16! V16!
(first posted 4/30/2017) This is the story of the development of three distinct AMERICAN V16 engined cars by each of their respective manufacturers seeking the same end goal of status, recognition, and commercial success. Two of the manufacturers (Peerless and Cadillac) had similar engine architectural features arising from the original Marmon design source, and the third (Marmon) likely developed its V16 as the updated V16 series 2.0 design once it understood that its design secrets were carried away to its competitors. The unexpected race to produce the first American production V16 had its winner, but due to the wealth destruction of the Great Depression, this was a pyrrhic, expensive victory for the winner, Cadillac.
The Marmon V16 entered production but was soon swept away by the Depression.
Peerless built its prototype V16, and then did the unexpected, with an interesting outcome discussed in the attached AQ article.
This is the interesting story of how the histories of these three great American car manufacturers were interwoven during the mid to late 1920’s extending into the 1930’s with a most unusual race to be first. Read and enjoy.
What is the purpose of a multicylinder V16 engine in a car? One word: PRESTIGE.
In 1914, in an earlier multicylinder race, Cadillac introduced its version of the 1910 French automaker De Dion Bouton V8 engine to the American market, shortly followed in 1915 by Peerless with its V8.
Packard Twin Six
In May 1915, not to be outdone in the multicylinder derby, as an early introduction for its 1916 production, Packard introduced its sensational, relatively light, compact, smooth L-head 60-degree TWIN SIX, 12 cylinder engine, the first Packard V12.
1916 Packard Twin Six
The Packard Twin Six set the prestige bar and essentially crushed the competition from Cadillac, Peerless, Pierce Arrow, Marmon, Stutz, etc. and added to the then developing and growing Packard Legend. This V12 allowed Packard to become the dominant US prestigious marque in the previous prestige 3 P’s (consisting of Packard, Peerless, and Pierce Arrow).
WW1 Bugatti U16 twin crankshaft Aeroengine studied by Howard Marmon
later 1929 T45 Bugatti U16 race engine
Bugatti Twin Crankshaft U16 engine design
While in France, during World War 1, leading the American Air Corp Technical Team, Howard Marmon studied the Bugatti U-16 twin crankshaft sixteen and fell in love with the concept of “The Sixteen” eventually leading to the production Marmon V16 introduced in 1931.
In the early 1920’s, Howard Marmon hired Owen Nacker, born in Highland, Michigan in 1883, as an engineering consultant. The two men developed design concepts for a 16 cylinder single crankshaft V16 45 degree included cylinder angle engine. The initial Marmon V16 single crankshaft overhead valve sixteen had reverse flow outboard intake and exhaust manifolds and was designed by November 1926 under the greatest secrecy.
Then Owen Nacker left Marmon, recruited by Cadillac which started development of their V16 under Owen Nacker’s supervision and direction in 1927, also under strict secrecy. The Cadillac V16 program was publically hidden and disguised when Larry Fischer of GM’s Fischer Body leaked red herring information to the press that Cadillac was developing a V12. In actuality Cadillac was additionally developing, in parallel, a 45 degree cylinder angle V12 derived from the still secret V16.
Cadillac OHV V16
The most disturbing fact to Howard Marmon, as he later learned, was that his friend and his former engineer, Owen Nacker, had supervised much of the design work and creation of the Cadillac V16 in 1927 with engine architecture similar to the initial Marmon design. This V16 engine design was unusual and atypical for Cadillac, a strong proponent of flathead engine design. It used Marmon inspired overhead valves. Prior Cadillac engines and subsequent prewar engines were typically L-type flat head designs. Additionally it used an aluminum 5 main bearing crankcase, modern type side by side con-rods, with nickel-iron blocks and iron heads, more typical of prior Cadillacs, but with, atypical for Cadillac, Reverse Flow outboard intake and exhaust manifolds with two updraft carburetors. Weight of the Cadillac V16 was massive, reportedly approximately 1300 pounds delivering 175 BPH, later revised to 165 BHP.
Marmon V16
Marmon V16
Side by Side con rods with off-set VS Fork-and-Blade con rod design without rod offset
The later Marmon production design, a second generation V16 design, if you will, would differ from the Cadillac design and the Peerless design by having a single crankshaft, 45 degree cylinder angle, Fork-and-Blade connecting rods, central camshaft, overhead valve, dual downdraft carburetor, a CROSSFLOW design with all aluminum crankcase, aluminum cylinder blocks, and aluminum cylinder heads. This was a truly modern design, except for the archaic fork-and-blade connecting rods, weighing 422 kg (930 lbs) with 200 BHP.
Peerless V16
James A Bohanon, who had been Howard Marmon’s Purchasing Agent for 6 years, left Marmon in July 1929 for the Peerless Presidency bringing extensive knowledge of the all Aluminum Marmon V16 with him to Peerless. This had the earlier Marmon design features similar to the Cadillac design, also with an aluminum crankcase, but with alloy blocks and heads. Similar to Cadillac, it had a single crankshaft, central camshaft, overhead valves with both reverse flow intake and exhaust manifolds outboard, not the ultimate crossflow design used in the production Marmon engine. The Peerless engine was considerably lighter than the iron heavy and weighty Cadillac design. It was a blend of earlier and later Marmon engineering ideas.
So, in short order, in the late phase of the seemingly endless wealth and prosperity of the Roaring Twenties, Marmon, Cadillac, and Peerless had caught the prestige fever and were in the race for multicylinder V16 prestige.
Cadillac won the race for the ultimate prestige shortly after the stock market crashed on Tuesday, October 29, 1929, introducing the V16 on January 4th, 1930 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel New York Automobile Show. Due to pre-crash orders and persisting post crash auto enthusiasm, Cadillac built and delivered, depending on the sources cited for reported production figures, approximately 2887 in 1930. Thereafter as the reality of the depression deepened, only relative, comparatively speaking, handfuls of V16 cars were built in dwindling numbers in the remaining years.
1930 Cadillac V16. The first engine with official styling input for visual effect.
1938 Cadillac Flathead 135 degree V16
The Cadillac V16 lived through two engine series—the first, the Marmon inspired, Owen Nacker designed OHV V16 from 1930 to 1937 and then the second, known as the 90 Series, the lower, wider 135 degree Cadillac designed flathead sixteen engine, produced from 1938 to December 1939, installed through model year 1940. This second flat head V16 had less expensive production costs compared to the two related 45 degree angle sibling Cadillac OHV V16 and V12 engines. This flat head design replaced both OHV engines, but was soon consigned to history, replaced, it seems, ultimately by the combination of Cadillac V8’s and the Oldsmobile Hydra-Matic automatic transmissions beginning in 1941 (An excellent review by Aaron Severson of Ate Up With Motor is recommended reading).
The total production of Cadillac V16 engines from 1930 to 1940 was approximately 4397 cars, ohv V16’s 1930-37 of approximately 3889 in number , and side valve 1938-40 V16’s of approximately 508 in number.
The Marmon V16 was introduced for a short production run of 3 years from 1931 to 1934 after which Marmon went into Depression related receivership ending Marmon V16 production after only 390 Marmon V16’s were produced and sold.
Between Marmon and Cadillac the total V16 production was 4,787 cars. The most cars produced and sold in a single year were the OHV Cadillac 16’s, 2887, sold in the introductory year of 1930 alone, and comprising 74.2 percent of total V16 production between 1930 to 1940.
The Great Depression crashed the country into a deeper reality making the V16 irrelevant as a production engine type. It is likely that none of the actually produced Marmon or Cadillac V16’s were sold for a profit. Not surprisingly, Cadillac later estimated that they lost money on every single V-16 they sold. The first and second Cadillac V16’s series production was sustained only by the production and wealth of GM, and did buy Cadillac its sought after prestige, and that then lasted for decades.
The story of the Cadillac and Marmon V16’s deserves to be told and will be told later in more detail.
The Peerless V16 never entered production. Interestingly the aluminum engine V16 and advanced predominately aluminum body and chassis body of the V16 Peerless weighed slightly over 4000 pounds compared to the 5,850 pounds of the Cadillac V16. The Marmon V16 even with its predominately aluminum engine but conventional steel body and chassis weighed just over 5500 pounds.
This is the story of the remaining sole 1932 Peerless “Sixteen” aluminum intensive prototype.
As discussed earlier, Peerless elected to stay in business canceling car production and its V16 project, conserved capital, converted the car factory to a brewery for the production of a new product, Carling Beer.
The story below was written by Stuart W. Wells for Automobile Quarterly Volume 40, Number 1, and published March 2000.
From 1902 Cars to 1933 Beer, eventually delivered in the aluminum Carling Black label beer can, the story of Peerless.
Even without wearing my glasses I can tell who took the first photo.
I wonder how the V16 story would’ve gone if it hadn’t been for the terrible timing vis-a-vis the Depression. Peerless got out of the car business with their shirt intact, Cadillac was propped up by the rest of General Motors, but it was the kiss of death for so many companies. Although even Duesenberg had a tough run sticking with their straight-8.
As the Duesenberg showed, it wasn’t all just about the number of cylinders. The The unsupercharged Model J had 265 hp, substantially more then the best of these V16s, and it was more expensive too, IIRC.
And the Bugatti Royale had a giant straight eight too.
Packard developed the Twin Six in search of a smoother running engine than the big sixes of the time. This was before the straight eight engine appeared. But once it did, the straight eight was really about as smooth as one could ask for. Which is why it became so dominant.
These V16s were just basically pissing matches. Expensive pissing matches.
The 265 HP rating was based on a special engine, not the production engine. See this source
Beautiful cars! The Great Depression put a damper on so many dreams for so many, it really was a lost decade.
Great story, those engine weights (for the cast iron versions) are simply stupendous! I have to imagine that more than a few V16s were lost to the scrap drives of the war effort when they were “just another used car”.
With fuel being rationed for the war effort, they were a very undesirable used car.
In a book, I read something like this:
“The V16 carried Cadillac elegantly, if not pragmatically, through the depression.”
It certainly was not pragmatic.
I’ve ridden in two V12 cars, one a Packard coup roadster and the other a Lincoln Zephyr, but never a car with a V16.
I don’t recall how long ago it was that I learned there were 16-cylinder engines made to power automobiles, but I’ve been fascinated by them (especially the Marmon) ever since.
I DIDN’T know of the human connection between all 3 engines until right now!
The Peerless prototype is one of my favorite closed-car designs of the 30’s. I was fortunate enough to be able to see it in person a few years ago at the Frederick C. Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland, OH. It is stunning!
A couple of pieces of trivia about the car – it has NEVER been restored (and I believe it has less than 30.000 miles on it). And what looks like pin striping all around the edges of the fenders and elsewhere on the body is bare aluminum, either never painted or with paint removed to LOOK like pinstripes!
I wonder why Packard never got into the V16 cylinder race.
It’s a good thing that Packard eschewed the 16 cylinder race. It appears that those who got into it did so at a considerable loss. The advantages of 16 cylinders over 12 cylinders are not technical; they are only dubious prestige.
It seems especially strange that the galvanic corrosion problems of aluminum were ignored and not adequately dealt with. That caused problems for a number of manufactures which used aluminum heads on cast iron blocks in addition to the problems noted in the article.
Plus the reputation was so good for the original first generation Twin Six that Packard didn’t need to add more cylinders. There was less than a ten year hiatus between the two different Twin Sixes, and Packard’s bespoke customers still had fond memories of the older engine, even though there were doing well enough with the Senior Eight that took it’s place.
So to bother with a sixteen would have been a waste of time. And, keep in mind, that one of the motivations of the three manufacturers to come out with V-16’s was to outdo the reputation of the original Packard engine.
The Auburn V12 built by Lycoming was a 45 degree angle V12 (like the 45 degree angle Cadillac V12 derived from the Cadillac V16) . This Auburn V12 was derived from a Lycoming designed V16 that was never built as a production engine. This V16 was originally planned for a gargantuan front wheel drive Cord which became stillborn due to the Great Depression.
One front wheel drive V12 Cord prototype, called the E1, was built around 1930. Try to imagine the steering effort required for such a front drive beast in the age before power steering!
The start of the late depression FDR Recession of 1937-1938 was the final nail in the coffin of Auburn,Cord, Duesenberg (RIP 1937) and Pierce Arrow (RIP 1938) and put the end to Packard Senior V12 production in 1939. Only the deep pockets of GM and Ford allowed Lincoln and Cadillac to remain as elite multicylinder (v12 and V16) producers for only a limited time into the then pre WW2 future. Even Cadillac ended listing the V16 as an available powerplant when the 1940 model year came to a close. Only Lincoln resumed post war production of its mediocre pre WW2 V12. Effectively the Multicylinder Race ended with the Recession of 1937-38 and WW2.
Fortunately for Packard, it never pursued the dead end of a V16 engine in the 1930’s, but rather invested in the Packard 120 which kept it alive in the 1930’s, though it too was ultimately doomed like all of the small independents because of its small pockets compared to much larger Ford and GM later in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Size of scale ultimately mattered for survival.
Lycoming V12 engine BB and ALF(fire truck engine) based on the same block and head design was always a 60deg V12. The second and third order harmonic of a four stroke V12 engine are canceled with either 60deg, or 135deg design. Lycoming/Auburn never offered a 45deg V12 engine.
One can see the design here: http://www.1932auburnsedan.com/v12-engine-home.html
This past week we were on vacation in Treasure Island, Florida. On Wednesday afternoon we were driving down the main strip on our way to dinner when we were passed by a V16 Cadillac four door convertible. The driver was by himself and the car had a Florida paper tag so I presume it had been recently purchased. I tried to grab my phone and snap some pictures but couldn’t get it operational in time. I wouldn’t say the driver was hot rodding the old Cadillac but he was certainly keeping up with traffic and rolling at a good clip.
Those 16s have always fascinated me. Until your last piece on Peerless, I did not recall that a 3rd V-16 nearly came to be.
That final flathead Cadillac V-16 has always mystified me. By then they must have known what an expensive dead end it would be, but the need to line-up Lincoln and Packard’s V-12s must have been overpowering.
At the beginning of the 1930’s the financial crisis was expected to be short. Cadillac updated the OHV V16 so that by 1934 is was rated at 185 HP. Cadillac probably started to design the flathead V16 by 1935, when the depression clearly was not going to be over anytime soon. The flathead design was much simpler and cheaper to build. There was no expectation then of the US getting involved in a World War, much less being bombed in 1941.
That first photo is great! At first I thought it was an original promotional painting, until I looked at the context of the picture which is clearly a modern classy auto show.
Cadillac was not considered to be an equal footing with the three P’s of luxury cars in the 1920’s (Pierce Arrow, Packard and Peerless). Cadillac started out as a mid priced car so it was probably not given much consideration by “true luxury car” owners. So Cadillac’s introduction of a V16 was intended to leap frog the competition by such a huge margin that they would have to be taken seriously. If any of the competition has beat them to it, Cadillac’s V16 would not have had quite the same impact.
Another motivation for developing a multi-cylinder luxury car engine, beyond prestige, was to create a engine with sufficient low-rpm torque to rendered gear-shifting to be minimized, driven in a manner almost like an automatic transmission. At least as much as possible before that was developed. Recall that gear-shifting then, prior to the development by Cadillac of the Syncro-Mesh transmission, required adroit skills to avoid gear clashing and abrupt starts.
Certainly, power at the upper end for those open road tours was also important. But for those who handled large luxury cars in the urban traffic requiring frequent gear-shifting, massive low-rpm torque allowed the car to be left in top gear, slowed to a walking pace, then accelerate easily without the ‘torque-agony’ groaning of lesser engines. Throughout the early decades into the 1920’s, a variety of long-stroke, large displacement sixes from Pierce-Arrow, Locomobile, McFarlan, etc. allowed just that type of operation, provided one had the wherewithal to purchase such a car. As the six cylinder engine gradually became common among medium-priced makes, the need to develop eights and beyond swept the industry.
Yes, again very late to the party…I understand the syncromesh gearbox was actually developed by Alvis in Coventry.
Thanks for the overview of the greatest multi-cylinder engines. The Owen Necker connection is very interesting.
Fascinating article about a car I had little knowledge of. Thank you so much for having written it! The mystique of the 16 cyl. engine was irresistible for a few brave (foolish?) automakers…
One also worthy of mention is the Bucciali TAV 16. The Bucciali brothers, who hailed from Corsica, made a handful of incredible road cars from about 1927 to 1932 — all FWD, low-slung designs, with a variety of engines: Continental straight-6 and -8, Voisin V12 and a “home-made” V16, which only ever existed in theory. It was supposed to be based on the Continental eight, but the Bucciali brothers went bust before they could ever make it. Didn’t stop them from advertising it, but the only chassis ever made, which still exists, has a mock V16…
Apparently, the Buccialis were involved with the Peerless V16, inasmuch as the special alloy wheels used on the Peerless was a Bucciali design (see: http://www.velocetoday.com/bodacious-bucciali-part-1-a-brief-moment-in-history/).
That’s quite a tale of skulduggery with an ending worthy of James Burke’s Connections.
As a coda, while Cadillac never built another V16, GM built a lot of V16 diesels in the form of the Detroit 16V71 and EMD 645 post WWII. GM also made a U12 during WWII, the Detroit 6046 which was a pair of 6-71 engines geared to a single output shaft on a common crankcase. This allowed running on a single 6-71 to conserve fuel or work around damage.
Were there any companies other than Peerless and Studebaker that decided they couldn’t survive in the car business, so let’s make something completely different?
Another example is Haynes, which once made cars that even Curbside Classic readers may not have heard of, but remains in business making metal alloys like the Stellite series.
The only reason I’ve heard of Haynes is because one of their brochures is the first photo on the oldcarbrochures.com home page. I know nothing about the company or their cars.
Kind of a CC effect. I was watching the movie, the Great Gatsby with De Caprio, yesterday. While the virtues of the movie can be debated, the racing scene of the yellow Duesenberg and the blue car, an Auburn Boat tail Speedster stand out. Sure there’s lot’s of CGI. However the scenes with these two cars brings them to life in a manner like the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. It may be fake, but seeing them driven with abandon by the devil may care type characters that would have bought and driven cars like this back then, was a real treat.
Was I the only who painfully noticed that they were using early/mid Thirties Model J’s and 851’s when The Great Gatsby takes place well before Black Friday? I was always left with the feeling that it was portrayed about 1924-25.
Which would mean that the Duesenberg would be the rather forgotten Model A, and the Auburn would have been the unsellable models that Mr. Cord had repainted and tarted up with extra chrome as he bailed out the Auburn company prior to his owning the firm.
Yeah, yeah, director making a point. The Model A was a magnificent engine in ‘meh’ bodywork, while Auburns of that vintage were totallly forgettable cars.
Haynes-Apperson, later Haynes, early experimenter with stainless steel.
The new Cord E1 originally had a Lycoming V-16