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You can spend a lifetime in your den with your buddies, warming on chardonnay or Schlitz, and debating the great cars of history. At first glance, it's a pretty easy argument for one that seemingly has no end. The parameters are plural and abundantly obvious: sales numbers, fidelity of concept, innovative looks, and on it goes. It explains why obvious winners like Cadillac and obscurities like the Ruxton get bandied about in discussions such as these on equal footing. When you're talking about a car's element that probably 90 percent of its original owners barely noticed--the engine, in other words--the dynamic of the argument changes. This should explain why we had a difficult time selecting the dozen greatest engines in automotive history, a process that encompassed a lot of time and some strongly heartfelt positioning.

What, then, makes an engine great? Is it naked, brass-knuckled horsepower? Yes, to some degree, although some of the most powerful engines ever installed in American automobiles limited their practicality and, therefore, their commercial appeal.You could think of the Chrysler 426 Hemi and the Dodge Viper, to cite just two examples, which explains why the first commands outrageous money today and the second will probably do the same in years to come. Broad acceptance by the masses? The Ford Model T and the flathead V-8 both qualify, very obviously, but the former was agrarian and the latter had inherent cooling and compression issues, which is why neither made the cut here. Breathtaking technological innovation? Chevrolet took a flyer under the hoods of both the Corvair and the Vega, and we all know how successful both those flights turned out.

The way we figure it, greatness is an elusively mixed cocktail with jiggers of inspiration and chutzpah ... nah, let's change that to in-your-face individuality, a flash of uniqueness that makes the creation memorable, like you never forgot about Lawrence Taylor if you were an NFL quarterback and he lined up across from you in the 1980s with a look of hateful insanity stamped on his face. We revere engines that broke from the pack and dared to be different, better, and willing to beat the automotive world at its own quest for power. So take a ride with us, right now, while we celebrate the most memorable underhood innovations this industry has produced, and a Column B of alternatives that came up just short during the deliberations.

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1905 Franklin air-cooled straight-six
Did an odder couple ever exist than Herbert Franklin, an ex-newspaper publisher, and John Wilkinson, who had some peculiar ideas about good engineering? They certainly teamed up for a memorable run together. Franklin owned the rights to the process that was eventually called die-casting, and Wilkinson was convinced that a proper performance car needed an air-cooled engine. The original Franklins liked higher-quality fuels, even though their well-engineered cooling system made them almost impervious to detonation. Test versions of early Franklins had compression ratios of 8.5:1 using ethyl gasoline; consider that an early Ford Model T's compression ratio is estimated at barely half that.

As originally designed and produced, the Franklin was a showpiece of sophistication and quality. In 1902, it boasted overhead valves. Three years later, Franklin offered a straight-six, the pistons and rods inside its individually cast, finned cylinders turning a crankshaft that ran in seven bearings. They had dry-sump lubrication. Franklins were initially cooled by a crankshaft-driven fan; by 1912, Wilkinson had added a second, flywheel-driven fan, along with an auxiliary exhaust valve at the bottom of each cylinder to vent heat more efficiently. That same year, a Franklin six produced 38hp from 303 cubic inches, a very impressive number.

1921 Wills Sainte Claire V-8
The only problem with this engine is that it sprang from the intellect of a marginal businessman. Childe Harold Wills had been Henry Ford's chief engineer before striking out on his own to build cars of uncompromising excellence. You can speak volumes about the innovations and spectacular workmanship in his car, but the engine was particularly stellar, an OHC V-8 that was brilliantly engineered and made extensive use of what, in those years, were highly exotic materials.

It had an aluminum crankcase and cast-iron cylinder bores, and all Wills Sainte Claire crankshafts, camshafts and rods were made of forged molybdenum steel, an industry first, making them all but impervious to breakage. Displacing 265 cubic inches and producing 67hp, the V-8 had amazing torque, thanks to its 92-pound flywheel. Nickel plating and polished aluminum fittings were everywhere under the hood, making the engine compartment almost Bugatti-like. The Wills Sainte Claire was among the most technically advanced cars of its era, but Wills was the ultimate perfectionist, relentlessly tinkering with prototypes instead of getting his cars in the hands of buyers, and the marque was gone after 1927.

1928 Lincoln L V-8
If you're interested in the first V-8 produced by the Ford Motor Company, don't waste your time looking for a Deuce. Instead, seek out one of these big, gorgeous Lincolns from the Jazz Age, with an engine that was equally stunning, designed by Henry M. Leland before he and his fiscal rescuer, Henry Ford, had a falling-out so vituperative that it might have inspired Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

This engine enjoyed an incredible lifespan, being produced with only minimal changes between 1920 and 1931. The 60-degree L-head V-8, rated at 90hp, displaced 384.8 cubic inches. Its architecture featured a cast-iron block mated to an aluminum crankcase, with solid valve lifters actuating conical valve springs. With enormous 12.5-inch rods, fastened with Leland's signature fork-and-blade design, the L had a 5.0-inch stroke. Its bore was increased to 3.5 inches for 1928, so the crankshaft got counterweights to compensate for the heavier piston weight. A two-barrel Winfield carburetor was an option, as was a 4.90 rear end. Their performance made Lincolns of this era favorites of big-city police detectives (the uniformed guys were usually stuck with flivvers, motorcycles or shoe leather). In 1929, the team of shooters who perpetrated the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago used a Lincoln touring car fitted with a gong and red light to disguise it as a detective car.

1929 Duesenberg J straight-eight
We almost included two Duesenberg engines on this list: The first was the 1920 Model A, the first American straight-eight engine. It served Duesenberg admirably during the '20s, bringing the heat to the brothers' battles with Harry Miller on the dirt and board tracks and at Indianapolis. Fred Duesenberg wanted to transition into building extreme, world-challenging luxury cars, and August convinced him that dual-overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder were the way to go.

Few cars have electrified the world the way the Duesenberg J did at its introduction. The 419.7-cu.in. straight-eight was built by Lycoming, but was a pure Duesenberg design, backed by E.L. Cord, who'd been keeping the brothers in cash since 1926. Cascading the best of mechanical sophistication like a collapsed dam, the J's forged aluminum-alloy connecting rods were topped by four-ring aluminum-alloy pistons. They turned a crankshaft that was drop forged using double-heat-treated chrome nickel steel that was counterweighted and both statically and dynamically balanced. Fixed to it was a vibration damper that used two 16-ounce cartridges of mercury to absorb any such irregularities. Its 1.5-inch Schebler carburetor was fed by four fuel pumps: three electric, one mechanical. With 5.20:1 compression, the naturally aspirated J produced an enormous 265hp. The centrifugally supercharged, 320hp SJ, which bowed as a 1933 model, was actually far less popular, with only about 40 actually turned out by the Duesenberg factory, although an unknown number of Js were retrofitted with blowers by their owners. Was the J the greatest American engine of all time?

1929 Pierce-Arrow L-head straight-eight
Throughout most of the 1920s, Pierce stuck fast to the straight-six, in the same manner that Double Bubble sticks to asphalt in August, while its upper-crust competitors were advancing to straight-eights and beyond. Cosmetic fixes and price cutting had little impact. Then, for 1929, the year after Studebaker bought control of Pierce-Arrow, it introduced a marvelous new straight-eight that gave it the most horsepower (125) of any American car produced that year.

The first such engine in Pierce-Arrow's history, its block was cast from a high-hardness cast-iron alloy and displaced 366 cubic inches. It was among the very first to utilize a replaceable oil filter and a mechanical fuel pump that supplanted the then-common vacuum tank. A dual-throat updraft Stromberg carburetor fed into a unique split intake manifold, by which each throat fed four cylinders for more precise fuel distribution. It even had a primitive, but effective, form of positive crankcase ventilation. Hailed as a great performer, the straight-eight doubled Pierce-Arrow sales in a single year, and today is still considered the Buffalo marque's technical pinnacle. It's also a common misconception that the Pierce-Arrow eight is somehow a knock-off of Studebaker's President Eight that first appeared in 1928, given the fact that Albert Erskine was Pierce's president and their blocks were cast in the Studebaker foundry. It's not true. Design work began under the previous regime of Myron Forbes, and the Pierce-Arrow's crankshaft runs in nine main bearings compared to the President Eight's five.

1930 Cadillac V-16
OK, so they lied. So tight was the secrecy surrounding the development of this mind-boggling engine that Cadillac general manager Lawrence Fisher discreetly leaked to a few members of the media that the division was developing a V-12. The truth was, Cadillac had lagged in sales behind Packard, and Harley Earl was designing a new generation of cars. Fisher wanted something whose mere existence would have instantaneous, grab-the-throat impact.

Chief engine designer Owen Nacker instead penned a massive, 452-cu.in. V-16 that when introduced amid stunning fanfare for 1930, was the first 16-cylinder engine built by a North American manufacturer. With just 45 degrees between the cylinders, it was amazingly narrow, essentially being a pair of straight-eights sharing a common crankshaft that could be squeezed under a narrow hood. Despite its odd proportions, the Cadillac V-16 set benchmarks for smooth operation, due to its counterweighted crankshaft and hydraulic valve-lash adjusters. The first Cadillac V-16s were built on chassis with 148-inch wheelbases, and despite the enormity of the cars--a relatively minimalist 1930 Fleetwood roadster scaled in at more than 5,300 pounds--they could reach 100 mph effortlessly. Only the fabled Duesenbergs rivaled Cadillac for pure performance. Marvelous output aside, the first of the Cadillac V-16s are remembered today as the first engines designed purely to meet the packaging needs of a stylist.

1930 Oakland V-8
In 1926, Oakland, named for the Michigan county where it had been producing cars since 1907, introduced a lower-priced companion line called Pontiac, named for the great Ottawa chief and, coincidentally, for the seat of Oakland County. That same year, development got under way on a V-8 that would replace the hoary Oakland straight-six, since selling sixes at the price of fours was the Pontiac action plan. What emerged was an L-head V-8 (Oakland's first dated to 1916) that out-wardly looked the same as a flathead Ford, only Oakland beat it to the marketplace by two full years, grabbing the belt as the first large-production V-8 installed in an affordable ($845-$1,045) automobile.

The Oakland V-8 displaced 251 cubic inches and produced 85hp, with three main bearings, solid lifters and a 5.2:1 compression ratio. Most notable, however, was a really neat feature that Oakland called a "synchronizer." It was a vibration-canceling system that utilized a spring-loaded pivoting rod that was moved by additional lobes on the front of the camshaft, rocking the engine block back against the frame rail, the whole setup functioning as a simplified predecessor to the harmonic balancer. It was all very elegant and functional, but Pontiacs outsold Oaklands in 1930 by more than seven to one. So, in mid-1931, the Oakland was quietly dropped and the General Motors division was renamed Pontiac--which got a good start with strong performance credentials once it inherited the Oakland V-8.

1932 Packard Twin Six
The timing might have been dubious, but design advances and the quest for sales were a tit-for-tat exercise when it came to American luxury cars in the early 1930s. And just for clarity, this was a very different Twin Six than the V-12 that Packard had introduced in 1915. With competition from the Pierce-Arrow V-12, the twelve- and sixteen-cylinder Cadillacs and the V-12 Lincoln, Packard had a new-generation V-12 on the drawing boards before the Depression hit, as approved by company president Alvan Macauley.

Packard had already created a stir by debuting a new Light Eight in 1932, but the unexpected Twin Six was a stunner. With a four-inch stroke, its displacement totaled 445.5 cubic inches, and its maximum output was 160hp. It was most popularly installed among non-coachbuilt Packards in the Series 905. As introduced in 1932, the Twin Six was the first Packard engine to use a downdraft carburetor (by Stromberg), along with hydraulic valve silencers and a solenoid-operated starter. Its power urged the huge, wonderfully stylish cars to 100 mph, and then some, with ease. Though it was priced only moderately upward of the eight-cylinder Packards, the dramatic Twin Six had trouble lining up buyers and the historic name would be dropped after a single year in favor of "Packard Twelve." While Macauley likely never foresaw the looming economic calamity, and the undeniable magnificence of the engine, the V-12 Packard became an exercise in hubris and sadly disappeared after 1939.

1949 Oldsmobile Rocket V-8
Charles F. Kettering, the Boss, exhorted his engineers to exploit their post-war engine development by pushing compression to then-unrealized levels, but the guy who made it really happen at Oldsmobile was Gilbert Burrell--one of the division's top-ranked designers. He started out to craft a new V-8 capable of handling compression up to 12.5:1, far beyond what even the best gasoline blends of the late 1940s would permit.

Why a V-8? In large part, because Oldsmobile planned to unveil a new, more compact A-body for 1949, which precluded the use of a straight-eight (see the Cadillac V-16 and its lesson on engine packaging). Why higher compression? To maximize the power-to-displacement quotient, as demanded by Kettering. Kettering built a six-cylinder prototype, which proved his notions on thermal efficiency were right. Burrell and his crew came up with a 303.7-cu.in. compact OHV V-8, which put a 7.25:1 pinch on the mixture and pumped out 135hp. When packaged with the A-body, dubbed the 88, the Rocket V-8 gave it 26.3 pounds per horsepower, an astounding number in 1949. Dominance at the dawn of NASCAR, and selection as a favorite police car, came almost at once. We can only guess that this pioneering high-compression V-8 must have made the Boss grin widely.

1951 Chrysler Hemi V-8
It was 1951, nearly 30 years after Ford had introduced its flathead V-8, and Chrysler, despite a hard-earned reputation for quality workmanship, still hadn't built one. That, however, was about to change. Chrysler did not invent the hemispherical combustion chamber. It appeared as early as 1904 on the Welch, was a design signature of Austro-Daimler, and later on Alfa Romeo, and was most famously used by Duesenberg.

Chrysler had first earnestly discussed an eventual replacement for its eternal straight-six and straight-eight as early as 1937. One immutable parameter was set: Whatever took their places had to incorporate the very best automotive technology available. Under the leadership of supervising engineer W.E. Drinkard and assistant chief engineer M.L. Carpentier, Chrysler boxed the compass and had a one-cylinder prototype running by 1946. In doing so, they torpedoed longstanding legends that the Hemi was inherently rough and gargled on low-octane fuel. They came to be delighted with its accommodation of arrow-straight ports, room for larger, burn-resistant valves, central spark-plug location and thermal efficiency. When it was introduced, the new Hemi produced 180hp from its 331.5 cubic inches, at least 20 better than the new Cadillac and Oldsmobile OHV V-8s. The short-stroke Hemi galvanized Chrysler's reputation for technical excellence, and waved the green on a factory horsepower race that would last for 20 years.

1955 Chevrolet V-8
As we've said, commercial success was not a sole criterion for making this list. But the small-block Chevy V-8 didn't just define the new cars in which it was installed--it helped Chevrolet to redefine itself, and by extension, it did the same thing for General Motors. Until 1955, Chevrolet had relied solely on mildly upgraded versions of the Stovebolt six, which had been around since 1929.

When GM authorized the V-8's development in 1952, chief engineer Ed Cole immediately boosted his staff from 800 people to 2,900. Most of the actual design work fell to his predecessor, Ed Kelley, and designer Harry Barr. An early 231-cu.in. prototype was discarded. A new blend of casting sand was developed, and the blocks cast upside down, so their bore cores would be more accurately positioned. Stamped-steel rocker arms were specified instead of costlier, heavier cast ones. Hollow pushrods improved top-end oiling. The landmark engine was designed in just 15 weeks.

With the Power Pack option, a 1955 Chevrolet V-8 produced 180hp, breathed like an athlete running laps and revved joyously. In a single year, Chevy's image was transformed forever. Well before 1960, the small-block had dethroned the eternal Ford flathead as the DIY performance engine of choice. With innumerable upgrades, more than 50 million small-block V-8s have been produced since 1955 and have dominated every form of racing in which they've taken part.

1966 Pontiac OHC-6
Pontiac started out the 1960s making its reputation in drag racing with the awesome 421 Super Duty series, then expanded its performance image with the GTO. Why then would it bother investing engineering capital in a straight-six, even one as off the wall as this? The answer, as with most everything else at Pontiac during those years, starts with John Z. DeLorean.

The engineer-turned-marketing genius had established an advanced-design group at Pontiac, one of whose projects was a proposed air-cooled six using an overhead camshaft and an aluminum block with cooling fins. That didn't make it to production, but the test engine's basic architecture was encouraging. Its most unique feature was a belt-driven, virtually maintenance-free camshaft drive, a technology first used by the German-built Glas of 1961, but first applied to a mass-market car by Pontiac. In testing, it was all but failure-proof. Another advance was its hydraulic valve-lash compensation system. When it appeared as the base Tempest engine, the OHC-6 displaced 230 cubic inches and was rated at 165hp, but a subsequent Sprint version, with a Rochester Quadrajet and 10.5:1 compression, produced 215hp. The OHC-6 proved that at least on DeLorean's watch, engineering excellence at Pontiac wasn't limited to big-bore, Tri-Power V-8s.

 

Significant, but not Stellar

1929 Chevrolet OHV straight-six
General Motors decided to go with an OHV straight-six instead of a bored-and-stroked four for reasons of smoothness, and thus marketability. Once its displacement was fixed at 194 cubic inches, the six went from development to full production in just six weeks. When introduced, it produced 48hp, easily outdistancing the 1929 Model A's 40hp. Refinement of the "Cast-Iron Wonder" commenced almost from the moment of its introduction; by 1934, it would have a counterbalanced crank-shaft, more efficient combustion chambers, staggered valves and additional horsepower.

1932 Ford V-8
While far from a perfect engine, the fact that the flathead brought real horsepower to the American motoring public gives it a measure of greatness. The first, 221-cu.in. L-head V-8 was introduced among tremendous hype, but the lack of development quickly became evident. Flatheads suffered cracked blocks, piston failures and oil starvation while running production changes went on. They were inherently poor breathers and seriously prone to overheating. In time, a rising generation of hot rodders solved these problems more effectively than Ford did, along with developing a process called "relieving the block" to maximize the combustion chambers' quench area. Problems aside, it was Henry's last technological achievement.

1953 Buick OHV V-8
It was time to extinguish the Fireball straight-eight, so Buick came up with a highly oversquare V-8 displacing 322 cubic inches. Originally called the Fireball, that name didn't last because its vertical intake valves, which in turn gave it upright valve covers, led it to be informally dubbed the "Nailhead." This was one super-stout engine: In 1953, its 4.00-inch bore was the largest used in any American passenger-car engine in a generation, and its 8.5:1 compression ratio led the industry; it was rated at 188hp, or at 200hp for Dynaflow-equipped Buicks.

In time, the Nailhead firmly established itself as Buick's full-blown performance engine, growing first to 401 cubic inches in 1959, and then to 425 cubic inches in 1963. Before it was retired in its original form after 1966, it had powered Buicks including the original Riviera, Wildcat and the first of the Gran Sports.

1960 Chrysler Slant Six
When Chrysler decided to replace its woefully inefficient L-head straight-sixes with a higher-compression, more compact engine, the company created a modern OHV six that was no taller than a Chrysler V-8. Engineers leaned the prototype engine 30 degrees to the right, while at the same time leaning its transmission 30 degrees to the left, for even weight balance. That also allowed designers to adopt an intake manifold with elongated runners, which in turn made high-turbulence "wedge" combustion chambers make sense.

The final design approved for production also had enormous main bearings and, right from the start, the Slant Six set a benchmark for durability and performance among small American engines. At 170 cubic inches when introduced in the 1960 Plymouth Valiant, it produced 101hp. Later Plymouth and Dodge versions were upped to 225 cubic inches and 145hp, although a factory Hyper-Pak boosted output all the way to 196hp.

1933 Marmon V-16
Like the original Cadillac V-16, the Marmon had 45 degrees of angle between its cylinder banks. The block itself was a pair of glistening aluminum castings, polished to a high sheen, with steel cylinder liners, held in place by rubber O-rings for proper seating during heat changes. Output was a muscular 200hp from 491 cubic inches, which made the Marmon V-16 the biggest engine installed in any American production car of its era. In this case, grandeur wasn't enough as, with sales reeling, Marmon declared that the V-16 would be the sole engine offered in 1933, the same year the company toppled into receivership. The Society of Automotive Engineers did, though, proclaim it as the most notable engineering benchmark of 1930.

1951 Studebaker OHV V-8
For its redesigned 1951 Commander, Studebaker decided to design a V-8--one that would embrace its values of low maintenance and good fuel mileage.

Studebaker engineers calculated the fuel economy of engines ranging in displacement from 162 to 362 cubic inches, which determined that their new lineup of Commander sedans would require 19hp to drive on a level road at 50 mph. As a result, Studebaker decided on a V-8 of 232.6 cubic inches. The engine's water passages ran the full length of the cylinder bores, allowing better oil-temperature management. The V-8's crankshaft was hewn from drop-forged steel and had six counterweights. When introduced in 1951, the engine produced 120hp, and would anchor Studebaker's powertrain lineup until production ended in South Bend, accepting displacement increases up to 289 cubic inches, as well as supercharging.