After the Model T, Henry Ford got his real blockbuster by masterminding another production triumph. This time, Ford’s industry first came in the form of a mass-produced, affordable V8 engine.
The Ford “flathead,” introduced in 1932, took up where the Model T left off. The Ford V8 quickly became Everyman’s power for the road, and Everyman’s power for racing. Like the Model T, the flathead never was a great success at Indianapolis and the other “upper echelons” of American racing. But it was a huge success at the grassroots levels and, because it could be easily improved for racing with modifications, the V8 flathead became another bonanza for aftermarket parts suppliers.
Production of the Ford V8 flathead continued into the early 1950s. The 1953 model year was its last. Some of the engine’s last hurrahs in racing were the first for Ford in the new NASCAR stock car racing series. A Lincoln holds the distinction of winning the first-ever NASCAR stock car race, won by Jim Roper, June 19, 1949, on a 3/4-mile dirt track in Charlotte, N.C. In fact, a Ford V8 crossed the finish line first, but the car was disqualified because it didn’t meet the requirements of being a “stock” car. It was into the next season before flathead V8 engines powered the first NASCAR Grand National wins by both Mercury and Ford cars. Bill Blair won in a Mercury on June 18, 1950, at a half-mile dirt track in Vernon, N.Y., and a week later “Shirtless” Jimmy Florian drove a Ford Coupe to victory on a quarter-mile dirt track in Dayton, Ohio.
