Originally posted by SpiderGearsMan
BTW, the architect of Hudson's success in NASCAR was one VINCE PIGGINS. http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/..._feature8.html
Bangshifters know Piggins later went on to run Chevrolet's clandestine motorsports operations (in violation of the AMA Ban and the 1963 GM Board's insistence upon abiding by it. Much of the reason that GM had so much success after factory support for NASCAR and drag racing dried up in the 1970s was the "heavy duty" parts operation that Piggins, Zora Arkus-Duntov and their co-conspirators had already put into place to circumvent the corporate "no racing" edict.)
Actually the flathead was technically obsolete as soon as the world had seen Peugeot's DOHC during the 1913 racing season. Jules Goux won the Indianapolis 500 in 1913 with a 4-valve Peugeot. Every four-valve powerplant from that day forward, including such legends as the 1967 Ford-Cosworth DFV and the venerable Offenhauser, owes much of their basic concept to a 1913 Peugeot!
But flatheads were cheap, easy to build, and made adequate power for ordinary driving.
Henry Ford's breakthrough of a cheap monoblock flathead V8 wasn't that much technological. (Even arch competitor Chevrolet had overhead valves) It was a breakthrough in price because it made V8s available to the masses.
Nor was Chevrolet's "Motoramic" 1955 V8 much of a technological breakthrough. It was merely a cheap-to-build, elegantly-simple application of mostly decades-old ideas.
My point was that picking out some era of history and tying racing to it probably says more about the nostalgia and manufacturer loyalties of the proponent than the inherent technological efficacy of that era.
If we're turning back the calendar to "fix" racing from the scourge of "technology," then the flathead has just as much or more of claim than does OHV engines.
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