Suppose you are a wealthy American in the 1930s and you are looking for a new car. Chances are that you ended up in the Cadillac showroom, because the Cadillac V16 was the absolute top model at the time. It is also, despite the particularly bad timing of its launch, the only 16-cylinder V-shaped car to be produced on a larger scale. After that, the V16 was only discussed a few times.
The contrast could hardly be greater. In 1929, the US stock market collapsed completely and a time of economic disaster followed. Meanwhile, Cadillac had been developing a new top model with more cylinders than ever for almost four years. After all, customers asked for large cars with more power in the ‘roaring twenties’, when the American economy was doing very well. While it is now common for a new model to leak to the media well before its introduction, that was not the case with the Cadillac V16. When it was introduced at the New York Auto Show in 1930, both the press and the public were reportedly taken completely by surprise. That was because Cadillac had made it public that it was working on a V12 so that the crown jewel could remain behind closed doors.
Cadillac V16.
The V16 from Cadillac is without a doubt a jewel. With a displacement of 7.4 liters, the engine is actually not even extremely large for the number of cylinders, although it is of course still a substantial number. The cylinders are opposite each other at an angle of 45 degrees, so that the block remains relatively narrow. Thanks in part to two Stromberg carburettors, a counterweight on the crankshaft and ‘overhead valves’, the engine ran extremely refined. The V16 transferred its power of 165 hp and 433 Nm of torque to the rear wheels via a three-speed gearbox. The high torque in particular contributed to a refined and fairly effortless driving experience. Reportedly, you could put the car in top gear at a speed of 2.5 miles per hour (4 km/h) and accelerate to a top speed of around 130 km/h in one go. The lighter body styles of the V16 even reached 160 km/h.
Descending sales success
The name of the Cadillac V16 is by no means original, but the car sold – especially considering the fact that the economy was not doing too well in America – quite well. Customers could choose from several body styles, built on the chassis by coachbuilders Fleetwood and Fisher. Incidentally, General Motors had incorporated those companies to keep the building process as private as possible. It was still possible for customers to order a separate chassis, but very few did. For the first two months of sales, the V16 accounted for 20 percent of Cadillac’s sales.
The later Series 90.
However, that success quickly waned, because the great depression still got a grip on the sales figures. Where Cadillac had sold 2,500 V16s in 1930, that number was only 750 a year later and about 300 a year later. In the further course of the 1930s, Cadillac sold only around 50 units of the V16 each year. Cadillac tried to revive the V16 by boosting the power to 185 hp in 1934 and unveiling an all-new version of the engine in 1938. The latter block was very flat with a block angle of 135 degrees, weighed 113 kilos less than its predecessor and produced the same power. That block was in the Series 90 and, thanks to its low numbers, is a lot rarer than the earlier V16. But because Cadillac implemented various cost savings with the second engine, the first block can count on the most appreciation from enthusiasts.
Later V16s
Cadillac Sixteen.
Cadillac closed its V16 chapter in 1940. In 2003, the brand came up with the 1,000 hp Sixteen as a modern incarnation, but unfortunately it never became more than a concept car. Other V16s that did make it to the production stage are those of the Marmon Car Company in 1931, but only 400 of the Marmon Sixteen were built and in 1933 the manufacturer pulled the plug again. Only much later, in 1991, the new Cizeta-Moroder brought the V16T designed by Marcello Gandini onto the market. That V16 consisted of two V8s fused together, had a displacement of six liters and delivered 520 hp. Also special: the block was placed transversely (photo 9) behind the front seats. The V16T never became a success: in total, Cizeta built only 14 units from 1991 to 2003.
Bugatti later marketed the concept of 16 cylinders more successfully with the W16 in the Veyron and later the Chiron, but this is a fundamentally different engine type. Since a V16 would no longer fit in this time, it seems that we have to make do with the above history.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl