Buick’s V8 lived on for 40 years at Rover

In 1951, GM surprised the public with the General Motors Le Sabre, a futuristically designed study model with a nose like the inlet of a jet engine, the symbol for the future in those days. The car is equipped with gadgets such as jacks integrated into the chassis, a hood that closes automatically when it starts to rain and a 3.5-liter (216 cubic inch) V8 that is equipped with a supercharger. That engine – a 335 hp strong OHV made of aluminum – runs on petrol as well as on methanol, the magic agent used by Indy race cars in those days. Although the Le Saber is mainly an attention grabber and is certainly not intended for production, its V8 is a direct predecessor of the later light-alloy eight-cylinder. At the end of the 1950s, the popularity of aluminum as a basic material for engines took off in America, not in the least pushed by aluminum giant Alcoa. It is a light material and its heat properties are better than those of iron.

GM Le Saber Concept

GM subsidiary Buick also embraced light metal and in 1956, under the leadership of Joe Turlay, the development of a modest aluminum V8 with a cylinder capacity of three liters by American standards, inspired by the engine from the Le Sabre, started there, under the leadership of Joe Turlay. After the first tests (in an Opel Rekord as a driving test bench), the torque is found to be too low and the cylinder capacity is increased to 3,528 cc. Finally, the engine made its debut in 1960 in the Buick Special and the V8 was soon nicknamed Aluminum Fireball. Under pressure from GM management, Pontiac also uses the Buick ‘215’, from 1961 to 1962 he is in the Tempest. Oldsmobile goes a little further and makes a number of adjustments, including a different cylinder head. This results in a slightly higher torque. In mid-1962, Oldsmobile also introduced a high performance model: the F-85 Jetfire, together with the Chevrolet Corvair we are talking about the first passenger car with a turbo engine. With the help of a Garrett turbo, the power increases from 185 to 215 hp. There was no question of intercooling in those days; to avoid knocking, the compression ratio has not been scaled back, but the hot air from the turbo is cooled by injecting a mixture of 50 percent water and 50 percent methanol. This fluid is renamed Turbo-Rocket Fluid by GM’s marketing department. After all, we are in the Apollo era. The turbo technology is not a great success, most of the 9,607 sold F-85 Jetfire Turbos are later stripped of their turbo and fitted with larger carburetors. The engine fares better in racing. Based on the Oldsmobile version, Australian Repco develops a Formula 1 engine that will serve in the back of the Brabham in 1966, with which Jack Brabham promptly becomes world champion.

Oldsmobile Jetfire

By amputating two cylinders, a V6 is also developed on the basis of the Buick 215. Just like the V8, that six-cylinder still has a 90° block angle so that it can be produced on the same machines. Nothing would make more sense than that the V6 would also be built from aluminum, and so are the first prototypes. But… the use of aluminum entails higher manufacturing costs. And that’s not all. The powerful American steel industry does not want to know anything about aluminum – even influence in political circles is not shunned. Lobby work not only results in the V6 derived from the V8 (nickname: Fireball V6) being made of cast iron again, in 1963 the aluminum for the V8 is also left for what it is and – albeit with the necessary adjustments – the 215 V8 from now on also made of cast iron. In passing, the displacement of that new V8 increases to 4,923 cc (300 cubic inch), but the aluminum cylinder head, intake manifold and many other peripheral elements of the aluminum 215 V8 remain as in the Skylark for model year 1964. the displacement of the iron V8 continued to grow to 5.7 liters or 350 cubic inches in 1967. In the latter format, it is incidentally used by Kaiser-Jeep (later AMC Jeep) from 1968 to 1971 in the Jeeps Gladiator and Wagoneer, there in the corridors called the Dauntless V8 (the intrepid V8). Incidentally, the relationship with Jeep is not new. As early as 1965, the Fireball V6 was built into Jeep CJs as a Dauntless V6, and in 1966 – when Buick discontinued the Fireball V6 – the entire six-cylinder production facility was sold to Kaiser-Jeep.

Buick Century

At Jeep, the V6 is finally mothballed in 1971 when that brand comes with a six-cylinder in-line engine. However, it doesn’t mean the end of the Fireball V6 just yet. When, as a result of the oil crisis, there is a need for smaller engines, GM buys back the rights and tools of the V6 from AMC in 1974. By slightly increasing the bore, the same pistons can be used as in the 5.7-liter V8. The first to get it under the hood is the Buick Apollo. The last cast iron Buick 350 V8 comes off the production line in 1980. For the V6 there seems to be no end to it. Equipped with a turbo, the V6 can be found in the Indy 500 pace car in 1976 and a new crankshaft is installed a year later to improve the ignition distance (now 120°). In mid-1984, the engine is mounted transversely for the first time, in the front-wheel drive Buick Century. Even when GM comes with a 3.8-liter 60° V6 in 1988, the Buick engine will remain in production. It has been updated time and again over the years. Carburettors are giving way to increasingly sophisticated injection systems and in addition to the naturally aspirated variants, turbos and mechanical compressors are also appearing. The block is even the basis for the racing engine in the Menard Indycar that Arie Luyendijk drives in 1995. In the same year, the engine gets a serious makeover and then goes through life as Series II. The updates in 2003 are such that the V6 is now referred to as Series III. That will remain so until the last one rolls off the line on August 22, 2008.

Rover 3500 P6

Few will be surprised that the aluminum V8 is used by several brands within the GM group. But nobody can predict in advance which range of brands the Aluminum Fireball will eventually find its way to. In 1963, Rover is looking for a replacement for the 3.0 in-line six in the P5. Five- and six-cylinder variants of the new four-in-line in the P6 are among the serious possibilities. However, it is just a little different. William Martin-Hurst, one of the executives at Rover, is in America at Mercury Marine to license the marinized version of the new Rover gas turbine. During that visit, he comes across an aluminum V8 that has been prepared to be placed in a speedboat. When Martin-Hurst hears the background of the machine, he decides to take the V8 to Solihull for evaluation. Some Rover engineers have reservations about an American engine in their cars, but the first experiments are promising. The V8 is barely heavier than the four-in-line from the P6, a lot lighter than the old six-cylinder from the P5 and also significantly more powerful than the latter.

If Buick still built the light-alloy V8, the English would have liked to buy complete engines. But unfortunately, after almost 750,000 Buicks 215 V8s, the curtain fell in favor of the cast iron version at the end of model year 1963. However, Martin-Hurst is not easy to catch and manages to get Rover the production right of the engine at GM. However, Rover lacks experience in building V8s and aluminum engines. Thus, in early 1965, Joe Turlay, who is about to retire, is brought to England to assist in getting production ready. The latter also requires a number of adjustments to the design of the engine. Minor details. In September 1967 the 3.5-litre V8 makes its debut in the Rover P5 and in early 1968 it makes its appearance in the P6. When the Range Rover arrives in 1970, that primal SUV is only available with the V8. The bike is steadily making its way through the ever-expanding Leyland group, from MGB to Land Rover and from Triumph TR8 to Leyland Terrier truck. In 1986 the SD1 is the last Rover with the V8. Its successor, the Rover 800, will receive a V6 from Honda. At Land Rover, however, they persist. They fit the V8 in the Series III 109 and later in the Defender, but also in the second generation of the Ranger Rover and the Discovery. In order to breathe new life into MG, in the run-up to the introduction of the MGF in 1992, a further developed version of the MGB, the MG RV8, was built on a modest scale and equipped with the 3.9-liter version of the V8.
Over the years, the engine has been further improved and the displacement also increases. What starts with 3.5 liters becomes 3.9 liters in 1990, a 4.2 liter engine appears in 1992 and a 4.6 liter engine in 1996. In addition, Leyland of Australia already made a version with 4.4 liters for the P76 in 1973 and that engine is also built in the Leyland Terrier.

MG RV8

After the second oil crisis, British Leyland plans to develop a powerful diesel engine in 1979. As usual with BL, it should not cost too much money, preferably nothing. An existing petrol engine must therefore be used as the basis. That will be the 3.5-liter V8. Together with the Perkins engineers, BL is working on two versions under the working title ‘Iceberg’, a naturally aspirated variant (100 hp) and one with turbo (150 hp). The diesels are intended for the Range Rover, the SD1 and the Jaguar XJ. The development is not going very well. The main problems relate to the aluminum cylinder heads and the cooling. In addition, in America they are already over the worst scare of the oil crisis and when in 1982 the production of the petrol V8 is transferred to the Land Rover factory (where there is not exactly overcapacity and no room for an extra engine variant) British Leyland withdrew from Project Iceberg in 1983. Perkins continues alone to further develop the V8 diesel as an industrial engine, but that comes to nothing due to the loss of support from BL at the end of 1983. Incidentally, the Iceberg story has not been completely in vain. When the V8 appears in 1992 as 4.2 in the Range Rover Classic LSE, the reinforced block from Project Iceberg is used in it to cope with the increased performance.

Third parties also discover the engine. The first customer to report to Rover is Morgan. From 1968 to 2004, the V8 powered the Morgan Plus8. TVR is also a regular customer, as are car manufacturers such as Ginetta, Marcos, Bowler and even the Finnish truck manufacturer Sisu, which uses the V8 in a military tracked vehicle. The nice thing is that for a long time many parts of the Rover versions were interchangeable with (or at least used on) the iron V6s and V8s from General Motors and Jeep. In the hot rod world, clever use is made of Buick and Rover parts (blocks, crankshafts, heads, pistons) to build aluminum engines with a displacement of up to 5.2 litres.

bowler

In 2004 Land Rover stops production of the V8, the last car to receive it is the Discovery III. Is it really over now? New. For the replacement market, but also for racing, kit cars and other small-scale manufacturers, the English overhaul company MCT will continue to build the engine in limited numbers from 2006 onwards. Nowadays only based on existing blocks, new ones are no longer cast.

This article originally appeared in AutoWeek Classics issue 6 of 2016.