Detroit's battle cry reverberates with the rumble of eight cylinders — Camaros, Mustangs, Challengers, all burbling that unmistakable muscle-car thunder. The American V8 is an icon, and you'd be forgiven for believing that V8s originated on American soil, inspiring muscle car enthusiasts' hopes and dreams. Truth is, the V8 has more humble beginnings — in France. Yep, the first V8 didn't come from the U.S. at all. It was French, born in 1902, a whole three decades before Chevy and Ford were duking it out over the same kind of engines in the 1930s.
Called the Antoinette, it was designed to power aircraft and racing boats instead of being built for smoking tires and drag races. The engineer behind its conception was Léon Levavasseur, who dreamed up a 13.8-liter gas-injected, water-cooled, 80-horsepower, 90-degree V8 for aviation, and patented the idea in 1902. The first flight hadn't even taken place yet, but Levavasseur's financial backer and friend, industrialist Jules Gastambide, thought that the engine should be built first. This pioneering idea would pave the path for Levavasseur's engines to be produced between 1903 and 1912.
The Antoinette was used in competition speedboasts first, and it was in 1904 that it made it to the earliest aircraft. It wasn't until 1912 that the U.S. would get its taste of the first V8 in an automobile, and a proper production V8 was introduced by Cadillac in 1914. As we pointed out while tracing the roots of the Hemi engine, a transition from marine engines to automobiles seems to have been the theme back then.
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In 1904, Levavasseur began fitting his innovative V8 engine into competition speedboats and experimental aircraft. Aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, after seeing one of these boats on the Côte d'Azur, decided to test the engine in his 14-bis aircraft, an early design aircraft from 1906. The first version, producing 24 horsepower at 1,400 rpm, weighed just 120 pounds and notable for its lightness. But it proved underpowered for flight.
At Santos-Dumont's request, Levavasseur developed a larger version, increasing the bore from 80 millimeters to 110 and the stroke from 80 millimeters to 105. This redesigned engine delivered 50 horsepower and weighed 190 pounds, including the cooling water. Its resulting power-to-weight ratio was so advanced that it remained unsurpassed for the next 25 years.
Building on this success, Levavasseur went on to produce a series of V8-powered aircraft under the Antoinette name, ranging from Antoinette I to Antoinette VIII, establishing his engine as one of the most significant early aviation power plants. The V8 had already staked its claim to history, but it would take a few years before the automotive world truly realized what Levavasseur had given it.
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It's easy to forget just how global the roots of American car culture actually are. In 1914, Cadillac picked up on the V8 concept and mass-produced the first American V8, and that's when the layout really took off. It replaced Caddy's six-cylinder engines of the time with the Cadillac V8 Type 51. The V8 featured detachable cylinder heads in 1918, and Cadillac's basic L-head V8 design stayed in production through 1927.
Meanwhile, Henry Ford's big breakthrough came in 1932 with the launch of an affordable V8 engine. It was such a hit that it quickly outsold Ford's four-cylinder, which was dropped by 1935. All tracing back to a French engineer with big ideas about flight. Without Antoinette's experiment, there might never have been flathead Fords, big-block Chevys, or Hemis to roar through the 20th century. Levavasseur couldn't have imagined that versions of his airplane engine would end up in drag strips and NASCAR ovals, but history had other plans.
Today, the naturally aspirated V8 is still around, though a shrinking breed thanks to turbos and hybrids. And its legend remains. From Antoinette's workshop to Cadillac's assembly lines and Dodge's Hellcats, the V8 has been powering machines and imaginations for over a century.
