Class of 1965: When GM Had Eight V8 Engine Families
It’s hard to believe that The General was once so dominant that it sweated over the fear of being split up by the federal government via antitrust regulations, and that GM’s divisions cranked out more than 25 separate passenger-car engine types (counting Opel and Holden models) during the decade. Why, The General boasted ten different car V8s during the 1960s (not counting earlier models intended for warranty replacements, industrial use, etc); eight of those engines were being built in 1965 alone. Imagine a manufacturer today so mighty that it could offer eight totally different V8 engines (in 14 displacements) for sale in its new cars!
The cost to develop, manufacture, and provide parts support for so many engines must have been staggering; would GM have been better off blurring the lines between divisional identities (and perhaps increasing the likelihood of the kind of Department of Justice antitrust action that, not much later, broke up the Bell System) and cutting down the number of V8 families, thereby freeing up funds that might have enabled the company to, say, offer a line of genuinely import-crushing subcompacts during the Malaise Era? We could argue about it all day long! But first, let’s look at the choices offered to GM car shoppers in 1965:
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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When you have 52% of about a 10million unit market in 1965, each division had adequate economies of scale to produce unique engine families. Remember, the accessories, that is electrical, fuel and other systems were common across GM. Fisher Body forced common door skins starting in '59. It is amazing that the cars could be made to look so different. BTW, X-frames were also common '58-'64.
Canuckle.....friend of mine's dad had a 72 lesabre with the 350 back in the day. It ran beautifully until one day when he pulled into his driveway. Without warning the engine grenaded itself. It shot a rod through the side of the block and knocked the starter right off, and the back of the cam broke off, went through the welch plug in the back of the block and jammed into the flywheel. It only had 98k on it. A guy that I worked with in the early 90's had a grand prix with the buick 231 V6, same oiling system as the buick 8's. One night on his way to work it locked up on him on the expressway. I knew a woman with a regal with the 231 and it blew apart on her. They redesigned the oil pumps on those engines in 86 when it became the 3800.