Cadillac V16:The golden age of the automobile

Stunning, stylish cars made during Great Depression

Mar 14, 2009

Special to the Star

It's one of the motoring world's oddities: cars seldom looked as good as they did when times were as bad as they could be. Even as the Great Depression deepened, automakers turned out stunning designs that historians would later dub the "golden age of styling" – and few could match the Cadillac V16.

Like the era, this massive machine started out with good intentions, only to fall prey to forces ruling the battered market.

Ford was the U.S. sales leader in 1930, moving more than 1.1 million vehicles, with Chevrolet a distant second, but those could be had for $500 or so. Newly minted oil barons and movie stars wanted more, stepping into the rarified showrooms of domestic marques such as Duesenberg, Peerless and Cord, or exotics such as Rolls-Royce, Italy's Isotta-Fraschini, or France's Hispano-Suiza.

In many cases, customers bought only the chassis, ensuring exclusivity by having the body custom-built elsewhere to their specifications.

Cadillac was a step below Duesenberg, which charged $8,500 for a chassis alone. Instead, its main rival was Packard, which had used a 12-cylinder from 1916 to 1920, but was offering only straight-eight engines in 1930. That year, Cadillac introduced both a V12 and V16.

Revealed at the New York Auto Show on Jan. 4, 1930, the V16 garnered so many orders that GM immediately put it into production and, by April 18 – the day it was originally supposed to go on sale – the 1,000th V16 had already been shipped.

The overhead-valve engine displaced 452 cubic inches (7.4 L), and it made about 165 horsepower and 320 lb.-ft. of torque, measured by the rating methods of the day.

The frame was lengthened and strengthened to hold the massive body such a powerplant deserved, but torque characteristics were close enough to Cadillac's existing V8 that it shared its transmission and rear axle.

Blistering performance was never the intention, although the V16 could reach up to 160 km/h; few roads in 1930 were meant for high-speed driving, and tire technology had yet to keep pace. Instead, it was meant to provide silent, effortless power at any speed, and to that end, it did. At cruising speed, the only sound was the engine fan. Prices ranged from $5,350 to $9,200.

Called the Series 452, the V16's first year was its best, with 2,887 built. But the worsening depression wiped out many customers' savings, and left the still-wealthy less apt to flaunt their good fortune. Only 364 were built in 1931, and some dealers were already discounting them. Sales fell to 296 in 1932, and to 125 in 1933; from 1934 to 1937, only about 50 were sold each year.

Indiana-based Marmon was the only other U.S. automaker to offer a V16, from 1931 to the company's demise in 1933.

Cadillac dropped the V12 in 1937, but in 1938, with the economy improved, it introduced a new flathead V16. Some 311 were sold, but it didn't last: 136 were built for 1939, and a final 61 in 1940. The golden age was over.

Toronto Star