Explaining torque in the 1950s required an entire film crew, the GM Proving Grounds, and a railcar’s worth of competitive, full-size cars. Yes, friends, it’s another Jam Handy production, this time talking about the benefits of torque cranked out by the new Chevy small-block V8.

The cast in this one is great, including a white shirt/black tie type, identified as the kind of picky, detail oriented engineer that won’t just take a seat-of-the-pants test drive for an answer.

“You hear a lot about horsepower,” says Dr. Bunsen Honeydew with the sliderule, “but what really counts is road torque.”

Despite the cornball delivery, the message is loud and clear, and the simple animations do an outstanding job explaining the results of torque in everyday driving conditions. It’s something that your average car-driving Joe could get a refresher course in even today.

It’s the kind of information that everybody tells us people don’t have the time or the patience to sit through today, but if it was made to be interesting, with practical examples, you could probably show this thing in junior highs across the country and in eight minutes, get most of the kids in the room to describe what torque is a lot more effectively than in some boring lecture.

The practical example in this case is a 1955 Chevy Convertible hauling every single one of 16 competitive full-size cars behind it, thanks to the benefits of ample torque.

The movie shows the installation of a 1955-style dynamometer, as opposed to a modern drum dyno. The readout is on an analogue gauge riding inside the car.

Also, we’re going to be on the lookout for one of these “Time-Distance Ocillographs” at the next swap meet.

The film shows a match race between the 1955 Chevy, Ford and Plymouth offerings, piloted by “members of NASCAR.” Anyone venture to guess who these three guys might be?

Their test is great. “Leave the transmission in ‘Normal Drive.’ Land the accelerator to the floor. These conditions rule out driver skill as a factor.” Ok, then, why not save the money hiring three dudes from NASCAR, and just pick four random cab drivers, then?

The drivers then execute a quick Chin…er…”Pan-Asian” Fire Drill and head off in the other direction.

The hill test features an incredible drag race up up 27 percent grade. That seems pretty insane, but there are grades in the continental United States — Canton Avenue in Pittsburgh, for example — that far exceed it, and offer the added traction benefit of cobblestones.

The Ford competitor in the hill drag gets knocked for excessive tire spin, suggesting that the Chevy is better engineered for traction, but we’d suggest it’s probably got more to do with letting off the brake and letting the Ford coast three or four feet in reverse that’s the issue.

There you have it, folks. Ten minutes of the hottest Torque Talk you can imagine, thanks to the nice folks at Jam Handy and Chevrolet