Thank you Chuck, I really enjoyed that, and thank you to the car owner for sharing it and keeping a great piece of our automotive heritage alive and running.
I can sympathise. My own grandfather, a soldier in the Red Army, managed to get a Mercedes staff car. He hid it right through the Stalin years and only pulled it out in the 80s. We used to ride around in it when I was little - this sound brought back some memories. It still goes!
I know of a guy who has a 1930, with a different body. He had it since 1956, but he passed away a few years ago and now his nephew owns and drives it. It's never been restored either, though he's had some windows replaced because they were yellowing badly.
My Grandfather played piano, for the silent movies. The piano was up near the stage, and he would watch for a scary part or exciting part in the movie and play accordingly .He was excellent on the keyboards. He was also the Piano man in a band, that played in the North East, in the 20's and 30's 40's......and he painted houses with my dad and uncle....Anyway, He owned a V16 Caddy in the 30's, and like the owner said, he bought it cheap. He would drive my grandmother, the lead singer in the band, and the band...to many "gigs". He sold it for 100 dollars when WW!! started in 41. I wish he had kept that car. I love that era. Matt.
I have such a big list of 'want' cars, but this is honestly in my top 20, and possibly even in the top 10 (This or a Bug' Royale I can never decide upon, even though they are in different leagues). The list is ever changing though :) You are the man we all wish we could be for ATLEAST a day Chuck Derer!
I want one but I am going to get one in need of work so I wont feel bad about putting a more modern and powerful engine and drive train in it, other than that all original, maybe a discrete sound system.
@@TheDenofBadgers You take the V16 out its no longer called Cadillac V16 then. This is one of the most important cars ever, not something you can swap for a LS or put a cheap JBL subwoofer in.
A truly beautiful car from 1931, It is hard to believe that these cars were running around in 1931. The depreciation on these beauties was criminal. Totally elegant and beautiful.
No it fires 8 cylinders per revolution, in a four stroke engine you devide the cylinder count in two and you get the amount of cylinders firing per revolution
Gorgeous car, you are one fortunate individual to own such a gorgeous piece of history. Nice video work, and great to see the mechanicals of the car. Thanks for sharing.
Even in (relatively) modern cars manual gearboxes will still have a straight cut gear for reverse which makes that characteristic whine caused by the whole tooth hitting the teeth at quite a sharp angle on the other gear, helical gears hit the other teeth at a not so sharp of an angle thus reducing the whine. Reverse is straight cut because it inserts a gear between input and output shafts and it has to slide the gear in, on the odd occasion they don't line up so you have to run the main shaft to get the teeth to line up which can make reverse hard to select
msotil You sound like you know better then I but it didn't sound destructive and being a valuable restored machine I assumed everything was in order. Plus some how it sounds a bit familiar.
Right; it has to be gearbox whine. According to what I've read, the engine was so flexible that it would run smoothly down to only 3 mph in high gear. Low gear was used only for starting on extra steep hills. Thus, the driver is doing more shifting than necessary. Actually, except for top speed, a model A Ford would beat the V16. Like many cars of the time, the V16 had an extra heavy flywheel for smoothness. Thus, when accelerating from 0 to 60, it made little difference whether one went through the gears or just started in high (3rd) gear. People at that time weren't much interested in acceleration. They wanted good flexibility to minimize gear shifting and permit hill climbing in high gear, and that's what they got. My father, who was born in 1899, told me that when people learned to drive in earlier times, they were taught to disengage the clutch when making a fast stop because otherwise the momentum of the heavy flywheel would make stopping take longer. With modern cars, the fly wheel is much lighter and has little effect on stopping distance.
It sounds like by 47 Buick Roadmaster straight 8. Very smooth! Love the sound of the transmission whine! The average person in the 30's, even if they had a job, couldn't afford the gas it gulped. You can't duplicate originality! What a beautiful car! Thanks for posting this!
I appreciate the view of the driver and the instrument panel as the car is moving, I think it is so unthinking that so many car videos neglect to show what the driver sees as he drives, the most important view of the interior of all.
+MJorgy5 I don't think the owner is too savvy as to expressing mechanical things accurately. There was some misinformation also with regard to tuning it with the eight cylinders of one bank running "faster" than those of the other bank. I know he meant 'hitting harder', meaning mostly the carburetors not being 'in synch' and more vacuum being pulled on one side than the other.
Right. Considering that all 16 cylinders are connected to the same crankshaft, it would be a good trick to have one bank running faster than the other. Surely it would take the discovery of a new principal in physics.
Exactly! I hope it wasn't the actual owner who suggested 16 cylinders FIRING every revolution. A collector in London, Ontario has a couple of these V16 Caddies, along with an amazing collection of other rare and "One Off" Cadillacs. Surprisingly, at idle the exhaust note is quite similar to a V8 but things really smooth out as the revs climb.
Wow, the V16 was one of the cars in the main book I used to drool over when I was a kid. I still have it which is good because I may never see a V16 in person. Great vid, thanks Chuck.
(Like one-carb-per-cylinder bike engines and the like; the synchronisation isn't always one of the time domain e.g. the spark advance, but also how the mixture alters in response to different throttle settings in each carburettor and can make for rather uneven firing - like a misfire but more muted - and engine response unless each carb is tweaked to behave more like its brethren under the widest possible range of conditions)
To date the best video on a 452 V-16. Nice gear change ( synchro on this model in 1930). In my opinion the closed cars on a V16 chassis are at par with convertibles. This is a particularly handsome one. Thanks
Depends on the car. Top Gear seemed to think the 1917 Cadillac and the 1920s Austin 7 that copied it were the birthplace of the standard CBA pedals/column or central floor H-gate shift setup, but I got here via a video featuring a 1907 Renault that seems to offer very nearly the same arrangement - only difference being an outboard handbrake and stickshift. It's still effectively floormounted/H-gate, and the pedals are the same way round, though. Maybe it only got -popular- with the Caddy/Austin?
Because the gears are whats called a "straight cut" which means the splines of the cog were cut paralell to the direction of the axle. the newer cars do not whine because the gears are cut in a horizontal action where the splines are cut at a 45 degree angle to the axle.
Give the guy a break about the firing. Obviously, he has the money to own it and didn't build it. So, he's not a gear head. He is preserving it. Thanks for that, good job!
There were a few oldies which did that in various ways, but never really that common (Maserati Bimotor, 2CV Sahara etc), although twin-block straight eights, vee-cylinder engines etc were fairly widespread. The "synchronisation" problems mentioned are probably because it was specifically engineered as two motors that happened to share a crankshaft - and thus had separate carburettors, intakes, exhausts, distributors, timing advance mechanisms etc, all of which desync even on modern equivalents..
16 cylinders fireing on 1 revolution?? Is it a 2 stroke engine? If it's a 4 stroke engine you only got 8 cylinders fireing on one revolution as any 4 stroke engine will do a full cycle in one cylinder in 2 revolutions. Other than that it's an amazingly nice car Caddilac made in that era!
True, I spotted that as well ... but it's 4x as many as you get with a 4-cylinder, and in fact as they're more evenly spaced around the crank rotation (rather than all cylinders being at TDC or BDC when the power pulse hits) it's effectively even smoother still.
That's what the high-end buyer got, besides exclusivity and "see what I have": high-torque engines which required less shifting; smooth, quiet operation; quality. The manufacturers were sometimes looking for market cred and needed a high-end product to attract attention.
Well done video. Thanks. In response to the "floor it" and "just do a burn out" crowd--I've never driven a 16 cylinder Cadillac, but I have driven a 12 cylinder BMW and a V12 Jag, and what I learned is this: More cylinders does not equal more low-end acceleration. The BMW was not impressive from a standing start. Where it does get fun is above 80 mph. As other engines approach their top end, the 12s and 16s still have a long way to go. Way fast top end. But hard to imagine this car at 130 mph.
Does the ODOMETER (miles) portion of the speedometer work? They often had the grease in them tuurn to a lump, and as soon as toy moved the car, the thing went 'SCRAPE, CRUNCH' and that was the end of it.
I love the 1937 model like Marlene Dietrich's town car, apparently Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow also owned them. We have Marlene's here in New Zealand. Definitely my dream car..... even though it only does like 8 mpg at best. Just curious what does something like this sell for nowadays?
BTW, the more pistons to do the work the smaller they can be and thus, being lighter they can rev even high to push the needle to the red zone. A V-6 250 honda roadracer bike could be pushed to 17'000rpm where as the 2 cylinder 250 honda tops out at maybe 10'000rpm.
That is the early V16. The later V16 was almost a "flat" 16, since it's V angle was 135 degrees. This car had an OHV valve train, while the later cars were flat heads.
I think that's more likely to be just stronger (and more expensive) engineering, and a straight-up-admitted shorter service & parts replacement interval, as one of them is an all-out racer, and the Superdream (which I assume is the 250 2-pot you refer to) is meant to be a laid back, long lasting utility bike which manages about 80mph max. You don't see massive differences in revlimit between 750 & 2200cc 4-cyl car engines, but 1000cc 4-cyl bike (and 1500cc V10 F1GP) engines will still do 18krpm.
All original except for the front seat covers. I think I saw a modern era radiator hose, but this is negligible. That's a beautiful care. Sobieski is a lucky man.
By the 30's, most cars had standardized controls. In the early days of the Model T and others there was no standardization, so driving could become a dangerous exercise if you weren't thoroughly familiar with the vehicle you were driving. By the 20's, as motoring became more common, standardization really began taking hold.
If you start walking at one end, you MIGHT get to the other by Noon! It'll probably pass anything on the road but a gas station! It's a beautiful, REALLY big car. Hope it survives another 80 years, and that it can still find gasoline to run on!
Hey, Hans. They said that in the 70's, that the world was running out of oil. BULLSHIT! Look what happened. This planet creates petroleum as we speak. Don't take my word for it. Check it out.
Hi Could use some help on my 16, generator and water pump shaft not turning, tried to get the generator off, stuck...Also can't get it started.......car hasny run in along time.....
You know what's interesting about that, was around 1938 or 9 Buick was going to put all silent gears in thier transmissions and the dealers and the folks buyting Buick's objected. They liked the notion that folks heard them going through second gear as they took off. I've had many people comment that they like the way my '41 Buick sounds as I go through second gear! So I don't think Buick at least ever changed that until the V-8's came out in the early 50's.
I have a question. With cars from a certain time back then, like the cars before the 1940's, did this car have a gas pedal? I have seen cars like model t's and other cars from the 30's and before and I believe that they all had no gas pedal and the only way to increase speed was with a lever attached to the part of the steering wheel. Is there any cars from back during that time that had a gas pedal, cause I think that this Cadillac has one?
Penn Turnpike? Was that built yet? It's probably not geared for it though, given the tendency for old cars to be seriously under-geared, and the bluff front... though the speedometer does go up to 120! Maybe on a newly built dead-straight desert road, or out on the salt flats, with the valves floating like crazy, that needle might tick over 110...
That doesn't explain why the first gear whines, though. And wheel size only has a fairly minor bearing on overall gearing; normally your major factors are differential ratio, then internal gearing (the spread downwards to 1st from top which is usually around 1.00, and in older cars is literally a direct crank-diff connection), then wheels. Old cars almost universally had big, narrow wheels to deal with rutted, unsurfaced roads - not just the big, high-speed luxury models.
That is correct, but Cadillac was first to put a synchromesh transmission in a car. Later versions of the V-16 had them, not sure about earlier variants.
The owner tells a great story about the bricks being thrown at owners that owned these type of cars during the depression. Owners hiding these cars due to class envy during the Union and then the scrap drives during the F.D.R. era.
You mean my 182,000 all-original mile V8, 4x4 Expedition with the Heavy Duty Trailer Towing package, Valley Industries Class IV Receiver Hitch, Borg & Warner 4406 2 speed transfer case, 3.31 limited slip rear, oil & trans cooler, 30 gallon fuel tank, Bilstein heavy duty off-road shocks, a 4R70W tranny, heavy duty cooling system w/ oversized radiator, heavy duty alternator, and optima battery? By the way, notice I did say "probably just the way it's cut" in my first comment.
Most old cars with their primitive, simply made gear setups sound like that. I think they'd already hit upon the idea of both synchro and helical-cut gears, but manufacturing standards of the time couldn't make a strong enough helical low gear or 1st gear synchro to withstand the torque or speed difference that would be inflicted on it. Hence, straight-cut (intrinsically stronger, but noisier and less efficient), dogtooth engagement firsts, with that telltale whine, but quieter high gears. :)
This heavy car needs high torque to pull it and the gear ratio can be futher apart from 1st-2nd,2nd-3d and son on. The larger wheels add top the top speed with less turn than as 14" tire system .The rear-end ration can also be anywhere from 3:01-3:45 . Todays Dodge now uses their 8 speed with lrage tires for better gas mileage. With this torque, I bet the Caddy could have a Over-drive at .88-1 to cruise at 70 will pretty good gas milage.
I don't think that my heart could take the shear stress of driving this thing especially in todays traffic and I damn sure would NEVER drive it at night or in the rain. haha
+GeorgeBonez And I damn sure would not park this on a parking lot...ANYWHERE. People don't care whose door they dent. I parked my car while in the gym one day and somebody backed into my front bumper with a trailer hitch "ball" and split my front bumper (they're just plastic anyway). Bumpers used to protect a car...now they protect nothing since they are what makes up about 80 % of the front and back of cars today. You remove the "bumper" and the entire front or back of the car is gone.
After listening to this car's distinctive engine sound like a sewing machine I realised how accurate the sound was on the Lassiter V16 (Cadillac being Lassiter to avoid licencing troubles) in the game Mafia: The city of Lost Heaven.
I well understand the reaction of the poor when in 1968 my well to do future brother in law was able to date my sister in his brand new Mustang fastback while I was just a humble student. We never did get along very well.
real nice...doing a model right now...1932 caddy v16 dual cowl phaeton////came out nice.... my dad a a 53 chieftain straight 8......big...i cant imagine 2 8s together...
At 3:19 he said "For every one revolution, you have sixteen cylinders firing". That's not correct because each cylinder of a four-stroke engine fires only once for every two revolutions of the crankshaft, so a four-stroke, sixteen cylinder engine would fire eight times for each crankshaft revolution. (Twice as many as a V-8) Fabulous car, by the way!
Actually Cadillac introduced a flathead V8 in 1915 and had a flathead V8 through 1948. They introduced an overhead valve V8 in 1949. But the original V16 was OHV although oddly, they had a flathead V16 for one year after dropping the OHV V16 in about 1938. Another variation was a V12. So, for a while, customers had a choice of 8, 12, or 16 cylinders. The OHV V16 looked almost like two V8s side by side. There were two separate distributors, each for 8 cylinders. The valves and manifolds were not between the cylinder banks. Instead, they were on the outside. Thus, the left bank had the valves, manifolds, and carburetor on the left, and the right bank had the valves, manifolds, and carburetor on the right. That made it a bit difficult to synchronize the carburetors. The number of V16s sold was quite low, only a few hundred. A book I have on the history of the Cadillac states, approximately, "The V16 carried Cadillac elegantly, if not pragmatically, through the depression.".
Any thing built in 1930s America was a class act.
Only best carss
Love hearing those gears whine. Beautiful car !!!
Sounds like a TRUCK!
A Cadillac truck!
It took them 80 years to make another one!
I LOVE the sound of those old transmissions!
Thank you Chuck, I really enjoyed that, and thank you to the car owner for sharing it and keeping a great piece of our automotive heritage alive and running.
Thank's a million! Such a gorgeous car, just a dream on wheels!
I can sympathise. My own grandfather, a soldier in the Red Army, managed to get a Mercedes staff car. He hid it right through the Stalin years and only pulled it out in the 80s. We used to ride around in it when I was little - this sound brought back some memories. It still goes!
I know of a guy who has a 1930, with a different body. He had it since 1956, but he passed away a few years ago and now his nephew owns and drives it. It's never been restored either, though he's had some windows replaced because they were yellowing badly.
My Grandfather played piano, for the silent movies. The piano was up near the stage, and he would watch for a scary part or exciting part in the movie and play accordingly .He was excellent on the keyboards. He was also the Piano man in a band, that played in the North East, in the 20's and 30's 40's......and he painted houses with my dad and uncle....Anyway, He owned a V16 Caddy in the 30's, and like the owner said, he bought it cheap. He would drive my grandmother, the lead singer in the band, and the band...to many "gigs". He sold it for 100 dollars when WW!! started in 41. I wish he had kept that car. I love that era. Matt.
beautiful, beautiful car. thanks for putting this video up.
I have such a big list of 'want' cars, but this is honestly in my top 20, and possibly even in the top 10 (This or a Bug' Royale I can never decide upon, even though they are in different leagues). The list is ever changing though :) You are the man we all wish we could be for ATLEAST a day Chuck Derer!
keep this car away from rat rodders
Too big to bother with anyway.
+Drew Gadsby luckily
Keep original
I want one but I am going to get one in need of work so I wont feel bad about putting a more modern and powerful engine and drive train in it, other than that all original, maybe a discrete sound system.
@@TheDenofBadgers You take the V16 out its no longer called Cadillac V16 then. This is one of the most important cars ever, not something you can swap for a LS or put a cheap JBL subwoofer in.
A truly beautiful car from 1931, It is hard to believe that these cars were running around in 1931. The depreciation on these beauties was criminal. Totally elegant and beautiful.
In one revolution only 8 cylinders fire, assuming the engine is a four cycle
Bob Smith it did hurt ears too !
No it fires 8 cylinders per revolution, in a four stroke engine you devide the cylinder count in two and you get the amount of cylinders firing per revolution
@Terry Melvin i was answering some dude who deleted his comment
Gorgeous car, you are one fortunate individual to own such a gorgeous piece of history. Nice video work, and great to see the mechanicals of the car. Thanks for sharing.
Even in (relatively) modern cars manual gearboxes will still have a straight cut gear for reverse which makes that characteristic whine caused by the whole tooth hitting the teeth at quite a sharp angle on the other gear, helical gears hit the other teeth at a not so sharp of an angle thus reducing the whine. Reverse is straight cut because it inserts a gear between input and output shafts and it has to slide the gear in, on the odd occasion they don't line up so you have to run the main shaft to get the teeth to line up which can make reverse hard to select
Nice! I love that gear box whine too.
Bo McGillacutty It sounds more like a differential sound, where the ring gear and pinion are not meshing properly (misalignment).
msotil You sound like you know better then I but it didn't sound destructive and being a valuable restored machine I assumed everything was in order. Plus some how it sounds a bit familiar.
msotil - - Notice the sound goes away when he shifts into 3rd (direct) drive. Likely straight cut gears in the gearbox which will whine like that.
Right; it has to be gearbox whine.
According to what I've read, the engine was so flexible that it would run smoothly down to only 3 mph in high gear. Low gear was used only for starting on extra steep hills. Thus, the driver is doing more shifting than necessary. Actually, except for top speed, a model A Ford would beat the V16. Like many cars of the time, the V16 had an extra heavy flywheel for smoothness. Thus, when accelerating from 0 to 60, it made little difference whether one went through the gears or just started in high (3rd) gear. People at that time weren't much interested in acceleration. They wanted good flexibility to minimize gear shifting and permit hill climbing in high gear, and that's what they got.
My father, who was born in 1899, told me that when people learned to drive in earlier times, they were taught to disengage the clutch when making a fast stop because otherwise the momentum of the heavy flywheel would make stopping take longer. With modern cars, the fly wheel is much lighter and has little effect on stopping distance.
Very Beautiful Car, very smooth running! ! Hard to believe it is not restored!
It sounds like by 47 Buick Roadmaster straight 8. Very smooth! Love the sound of the transmission whine! The average person in the 30's, even if they had a job, couldn't afford the gas it gulped. You can't duplicate originality! What a beautiful car! Thanks for posting this!
I appreciate the view of the driver and the instrument panel as the car is moving, I think it is so unthinking that so many car videos neglect to show what the driver sees as he drives, the most important view of the interior of all.
Every rev would yield 8 power strokes (not 16) unless for some reason it's a 2-stroke design. Sweet ride though!
+MJorgy5 I don't think the owner is too savvy as to expressing mechanical things accurately. There was some misinformation also with regard to tuning it with the eight cylinders of one bank running "faster" than those of the other bank. I know he meant 'hitting harder', meaning mostly the carburetors not being 'in synch' and more vacuum being pulled on one side than the other.
Right. Considering that all 16 cylinders are connected to the same crankshaft, it would be a good trick to have one bank running faster than the other. Surely it would take the discovery of a new principal in physics.
Exactly! I hope it wasn't the actual owner who suggested 16 cylinders FIRING every revolution.
A collector in London, Ontario has a couple of these V16 Caddies, along with an amazing collection of other rare and "One Off" Cadillacs. Surprisingly, at idle the exhaust note is quite similar to a V8 but things really smooth out as the revs climb.
these vehicles define beauty in every way even the way the motor holds an idle is so smooth and sedated
Dang, that's a GORGEOUS CAR!!
stunning car, never videoed one of these beautiful V16 Caddys
I love this sound .. I love cars from the late 20's - 50's ...
I’m glad he drives it. That is what cars are made for!
Wow, the V16 was one of the cars in the main book I used to drool over when I was a kid. I still have it which is good because I may never see a V16 in person. Great vid, thanks Chuck.
This was amazing. If I had the money, I would definitely look for that guy and try to buy it off of him. Thank you for the video, Chuck!
You're very welcome!
by the way, I was wondering what causes the wine in first gear... it is one of the most pleasing sounds I've ever heard!
(Like one-carb-per-cylinder bike engines and the like; the synchronisation isn't always one of the time domain e.g. the spark advance, but also how the mixture alters in response to different throttle settings in each carburettor and can make for rather uneven firing - like a misfire but more muted - and engine response unless each carb is tweaked to behave more like its brethren under the widest possible range of conditions)
To date the best video on a 452 V-16. Nice gear change ( synchro on this model in 1930). In my opinion the closed cars on a V16 chassis are at par with convertibles. This is a particularly handsome one. Thanks
Depends on the car. Top Gear seemed to think the 1917 Cadillac and the 1920s Austin 7 that copied it were the birthplace of the standard CBA pedals/column or central floor H-gate shift setup, but I got here via a video featuring a 1907 Renault that seems to offer very nearly the same arrangement - only difference being an outboard handbrake and stickshift. It's still effectively floormounted/H-gate, and the pedals are the same way round, though. Maybe it only got -popular- with the Caddy/Austin?
I bet that thing rides hella smooth, and for some reason I really like that gear whine, adds a little "this is a complex machine" branding to it.
this car is 85yrs old and it hasn't been restored, that's crazy!!!!!!!!! this vehicle is a soul survivor
Because the gears are whats called a "straight cut" which means the splines of the cog were cut paralell to the direction of the axle. the newer cars do not whine because the gears are cut in a horizontal action where the splines are cut at a 45 degree angle to the axle.
beautiful masterpiece-thanks for sharing.
Give the guy a break about the firing. Obviously, he has the money to own it and didn't build it. So, he's not a gear head. He is preserving it.
Thanks for that, good job!
There were a few oldies which did that in various ways, but never really that common (Maserati Bimotor, 2CV Sahara etc), although twin-block straight eights, vee-cylinder engines etc were fairly widespread. The "synchronisation" problems mentioned are probably because it was specifically engineered as two motors that happened to share a crankshaft - and thus had separate carburettors, intakes, exhausts, distributors, timing advance mechanisms etc, all of which desync even on modern equivalents..
Back in the day was there anywhere that 130 mph could be achieved?
16 cylinders fireing on 1 revolution?? Is it a 2 stroke engine? If it's a 4 stroke engine you only got 8 cylinders fireing on one revolution as any 4 stroke engine will do a full cycle in one cylinder in 2 revolutions.
Other than that it's an amazingly nice car Caddilac made in that era!
@Terry Melvin But for every 22.5° of rotation, a single cylinder fires adjacently after the one that fired before it.
True, I spotted that as well ... but it's 4x as many as you get with a 4-cylinder, and in fact as they're more evenly spaced around the crank rotation (rather than all cylinders being at TDC or BDC when the power pulse hits) it's effectively even smoother still.
That's what the high-end buyer got, besides exclusivity and "see what I have": high-torque engines which required less shifting; smooth, quiet operation; quality. The manufacturers were sometimes looking for market cred and needed a high-end product to attract attention.
The wining when driving reminds me of the old commi cars we had in Poland
Well done video. Thanks.
In response to the "floor it" and "just do a burn out" crowd--I've never driven a 16 cylinder Cadillac, but I have driven a 12 cylinder BMW and a V12 Jag, and what I learned is this: More cylinders does not equal more low-end acceleration. The BMW was not impressive from a standing start. Where it does get fun is above 80 mph. As other engines approach their top end, the 12s and 16s still have a long way to go. Way fast top end. But hard to imagine this car at 130 mph.
Does the ODOMETER (miles) portion of the speedometer work? They often had the grease in them tuurn to a lump, and as soon as toy moved the car, the thing went 'SCRAPE, CRUNCH' and that was the end of it.
It's a 4 stroke, so for every one revolution of the crank there are eight cylinders firing.
I spoke to someone at a car show who had one of these, and he said it makes about 2-5 mpg, depending if it is city or highway driving...
I love the 1937 model like Marlene Dietrich's town car, apparently Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow also owned them. We have Marlene's here in New Zealand. Definitely my dream car..... even though it only does like 8 mpg at best. Just curious what does something like this sell for nowadays?
BTW, the more pistons to do the work the smaller they can be and thus, being lighter they can rev even high to push the needle to the red zone. A V-6 250 honda roadracer bike could be pushed to 17'000rpm where as the 2 cylinder 250 honda tops out at maybe 10'000rpm.
That is the early V16. The later V16 was almost a "flat" 16, since it's V angle was 135 degrees. This car had an OHV valve train, while the later cars were flat heads.
8 power pulses per revolution not 16
I think that's more likely to be just stronger (and more expensive) engineering, and a straight-up-admitted shorter service & parts replacement interval, as one of them is an all-out racer, and the Superdream (which I assume is the 250 2-pot you refer to) is meant to be a laid back, long lasting utility bike which manages about 80mph max. You don't see massive differences in revlimit between 750 & 2200cc 4-cyl car engines, but 1000cc 4-cyl bike (and 1500cc V10 F1GP) engines will still do 18krpm.
All original except for the front seat covers. I think I saw a modern era radiator hose, but this is negligible. That's a beautiful care. Sobieski is a lucky man.
By the 30's, most cars had standardized controls. In the early days of the Model T and others there was no standardization, so driving could become a dangerous exercise if you weren't thoroughly familiar with the vehicle you were driving. By the 20's, as motoring became more common, standardization really began taking hold.
Every 2 revolutions 16 cylinders fire...not every revolution...or is it a 2 stroke? ;-)
Beautiful car! Would have enjoyed to have seen the interior.
If americans call that thing big it must be horrifyingly huge
Lol!
If you start walking at one end, you MIGHT get to the other by Noon! It'll probably pass anything on the road but a gas station! It's a beautiful, REALLY big car. Hope it survives another 80 years, and that it can still find gasoline to run on!
+The12SQ7GT Finding gasoline might become harder in future
Hey, Hans. They said that in the 70's, that the world was running out of oil. BULLSHIT! Look what happened. This planet creates petroleum as we speak. Don't take my word for it. Check it out.
Some random guy 12 Sq7gt is a radio tube if you need one I have 10000 tubes of that era
How would we get it to stop!
Brakes,I would assume
Hi Could use some help on my 16, generator and water pump shaft not turning, tried to get the generator off, stuck...Also can't get it started.......car hasny run in along time.....
You know what's interesting about that, was around 1938 or 9 Buick was going to put all silent gears in thier transmissions and the dealers and the folks buyting Buick's objected. They liked the notion that folks heard them going through second gear as they took off. I've had many people comment that they like the way my '41 Buick sounds as I go through second gear! So I don't think Buick at least ever changed that until the V-8's came out in the early 50's.
when diriving what makes the weird flutey sound
how big the is the gas tank on that ?
Gallons? More like barrels.
@@lsswappedcessna The owner didn't travel long distances by car. They went by train. The chauffeur took care of the motor vehicles.
I have a question. With cars from a certain time back then, like the cars before the 1940's, did this car have a gas pedal? I have seen cars like model t's and other cars from the 30's and before and I believe that they all had no gas pedal and the only way to increase speed was with a lever attached to the part of the steering wheel. Is there any cars from back during that time that had a gas pedal, cause I think that this Cadillac has one?
Good job chuck and great find!
Beautiful car just love them !!
Penn Turnpike? Was that built yet? It's probably not geared for it though, given the tendency for old cars to be seriously under-geared, and the bluff front... though the speedometer does go up to 120! Maybe on a newly built dead-straight desert road, or out on the salt flats, with the valves floating like crazy, that needle might tick over 110...
That doesn't explain why the first gear whines, though. And wheel size only has a fairly minor bearing on overall gearing; normally your major factors are differential ratio, then internal gearing (the spread downwards to 1st from top which is usually around 1.00, and in older cars is literally a direct crank-diff connection), then wheels. Old cars almost universally had big, narrow wheels to deal with rutted, unsurfaced roads - not just the big, high-speed luxury models.
amazing car with a amazing sound
The only manual that stumped me as a youngster was the infamous '3 on a tree' lol Strangest shift I ever encountered on an old f-150.
That is an amazing car! Thing sounds sweet!
Extremely nice car for its age and a true classic.
I love em all 60's and 70's muscle cars most. But I'd also like to go to pebble beach as well to look at all the beautiful 30's cars....
16 firings per 2 revolutions. intake stroke, fire, exhaust stroke.
That is correct, but Cadillac was first to put a synchromesh transmission in a car. Later versions of the V-16 had them, not sure about earlier variants.
The owner tells a great story about the bricks being thrown at owners that owned these type of cars during the depression. Owners hiding these cars due to class envy during the Union and then the scrap drives during the F.D.R. era.
this car is badass... I'd love to see a full acceleration run on it
at 2:50,,look at it just stunning,the concept CL caddy including the blonde both nice.
when a Cadillac was a Cadillac!
Awesome automobile. There a curtain pride and craftsmanship in this time frame of cars that has not been found since.
That V16 straight up gangster! there is no doubt!
Correct me if I'm wrong but one big difference is back then you had to double clutch. Now days you generally don't have to.
I meant for like a full throttle run to 60 maybe... but either way I think a parachute would do the job!
Beautiful Car!!! I want to buy one!
You mean my 182,000 all-original mile V8, 4x4 Expedition with the Heavy Duty Trailer Towing package, Valley Industries Class IV Receiver Hitch, Borg & Warner 4406 2 speed transfer case, 3.31 limited slip rear, oil & trans cooler, 30 gallon fuel tank, Bilstein heavy duty off-road shocks, a 4R70W tranny, heavy duty cooling system w/ oversized radiator, heavy duty alternator, and optima battery? By the way, notice I did say "probably just the way it's cut" in my first comment.
452 Cubic inches, 7.4L from 1930-37. Reduced to 421 Cu in '38 and changed from OHV to L-Head...both models made 185 HP
I quite fancied one of these,but what puts me of is the 'tank handling'he mentions. Oh..... and i'm potless. Cheers.
Beautiful!
I am deeply impressed. My 10 year-old son Deniz liked it too.
The V-12 Packard's were sold as the Twin-Six cylinders with the same concept.
Why does the first gear whine?
Most old cars with their primitive, simply made gear setups sound like that. I think they'd already hit upon the idea of both synchro and helical-cut gears, but manufacturing standards of the time couldn't make a strong enough helical low gear or 1st gear synchro to withstand the torque or speed difference that would be inflicted on it. Hence, straight-cut (intrinsically stronger, but noisier and less efficient), dogtooth engagement firsts, with that telltale whine, but quieter high gears. :)
This heavy car needs high torque to pull it and the gear ratio can be futher apart from 1st-2nd,2nd-3d and son on. The larger wheels add top the top speed with less turn than as 14" tire system .The rear-end ration can also be anywhere from 3:01-3:45 . Todays Dodge now uses their 8 speed with lrage tires for better gas mileage. With this torque, I bet the Caddy could have a Over-drive at .88-1 to cruise at 70 will pretty good gas milage.
Isn't it 4 cylinders that fire in 360 degrees?
What a BEAUTIFUL car!
WOW!
I don't think that my heart could take the shear stress of driving this thing especially in todays traffic and I damn sure would NEVER drive it at night or in the rain. haha
+GeorgeBonez And I damn sure would not park this on a parking lot...ANYWHERE. People don't care whose door they dent. I parked my car while in the gym one day and somebody backed into my front bumper with a trailer hitch "ball" and split my front bumper (they're just plastic anyway). Bumpers used to protect a car...now they protect nothing since they are what makes up about 80 % of the front and back of cars today. You remove the "bumper" and the entire front or back of the car is gone.
Expensive to replace, too!
you cant replace it PERIOD
They built amazingly comfortable car already back then but there is one thing they weren't able to manage yet: Silent gear boxes.
After listening to this car's distinctive engine sound like a sewing machine I realised how accurate the sound was on the Lassiter V16 (Cadillac being Lassiter to avoid licencing troubles) in the game Mafia: The city of Lost Heaven.
I well understand the reaction of the poor when in 1968 my well to do future brother in law was able to date my sister in his brand new Mustang fastback while I was just a humble student. We never did get along very well.
real nice...doing a model right now...1932 caddy v16 dual cowl phaeton////came out nice....
my dad a a 53 chieftain straight 8......big...i cant imagine 2 8s together...
At 3:19 he said "For every one revolution, you have sixteen cylinders firing". That's not correct because each cylinder of a four-stroke engine fires only once for every two revolutions of the crankshaft, so a four-stroke, sixteen cylinder engine would fire eight times for each crankshaft revolution. (Twice as many as a V-8)
Fabulous car, by the way!
what's not mentioned it has overhead valves in later years went to flathead 8 until 49 .had a 59vette same noisy trans .could buy them 800$ in 70s
Actually Cadillac introduced a flathead V8 in 1915 and had a flathead V8 through 1948. They introduced an overhead valve V8 in 1949. But the original V16 was OHV although oddly, they had a flathead V16 for one year after dropping the OHV V16 in about 1938. Another variation was a V12. So, for a while, customers had a choice of 8, 12, or 16 cylinders.
The OHV V16 looked almost like two V8s side by side. There were two separate distributors, each for 8 cylinders. The valves and manifolds were not between the cylinder banks. Instead, they were on the outside. Thus, the left bank had the valves, manifolds, and carburetor on the left, and the right bank had the valves, manifolds, and carburetor on the right. That made it a bit difficult to synchronize the carburetors.
The number of V16s sold was quite low, only a few hundred. A book I have on the history of the Cadillac states, approximately, "The V16 carried Cadillac elegantly, if not pragmatically, through the depression.".
Listen to that engine!!!! LOVE IT!