Watch this video on the invention of the Ford V-8 engine

Although Ford’s Model A was hugely successful, by 1931 the market was changing. The stock market crash of 1929 and Chevrolet closing the sales gap with Ford (largely due to Chevy’s six-cylinder engine) were putting Ford on its heels. Henry Ford wanted to regain the market lead by introducing a V8 engine that was affordable to the masses. However, his previous attempt with an X8 was too heavy and complex to work effectively for what he wanted. Ford had been putting V8 engines in Lincoln, but those engines were cast in complex sections. In order to bring down the cost of the V8 engine to make it affordable, he wanted to cast the engine block in one piece.

This led to Ford’s secret V8 engine project that ran from 1931 to 1932. By March 9, 1932, Ford’s first one-piece V8 engine rolled out of production. Although it initially didn’t sell well and the earliest Ford V8s had mechanical problems, by July 1932 Ford was selling three times more V8s than their four-cylinder cars. Watch the video for more on why this was an automotive milestone, how it helped Ford beat the competition yet again, and how it made the flathead V8 synonymous with Ford for the following two decades.