Yes, there was such a thing, but it wasn’t a product of the Ford Motor Company. An enterprising Ford dealer in San Bernardino, California produced the Flivver V8.

Henry Ford’s Model T (1909-1927) has been called many things over the years, but “powerful” is probably one of the least-used adjectives. Its eager but meager four-cylinder engine displaced 177 cubic inches, producing all of 22 horsepower at 1,600 rpm. When the Model T first appeared in the fall of 1908, 22 hp was actually a rather impressive figure, but as the years passed by, so did the rest of the industry.

For his part, Henry Ford was content with the Model T’s modest output, but at least one Ford dealer took the matter into his own hands. In 1917, J. Dale Gentry, who owned and operated a Ford agency in San Bernardino, California, created a clever V8 version of the Model T four-banger with the assistance of Martin Lewis, a local engineer.

The Gentry V8, or Gentry-Lewis V8 if you prefer, was built around a production Model T crankshaft, as illustrated in the photo above. Each pair of opposing cylinders in the vee-block configuration shared a crank journal through the use of custom-made narrow connecting rods. The two banks shared a common camshaft as well. A local foundry reportedly performed the required casting operations, while the machining was handled by another local shop. The Ford’s thermo-syphon cooling system, two-speed planetary transmission, and other signature features were retained. An eight-cylinder distributor provided the ignition, while a single Zenith updraft carburetor fed the two cylinder banks.

As the story goes, around 20 or 30 of these engines were produced and sold when Mr. Gentry was paid a visit from representatives of the Ford Motor Company. The agents reportedly inspected the dealer’s handiwork and then ordered Gentry to stop immediately or lose his franchise. Gentry complied, but his relationship with the factory continued to be a rocky one, it’s said, and in 1926 they finally parted ways when Gentry declined to participate in a Ford battery promotion.  In the Model T days, Ford was known for its rough handling of dealers. If a dealer refused to play ball, he might find a competing location opened across the street.

At least one of the V8 engines survived, and for some years it was part of the collection at the Henry Ford Museum before it was auctioned off in a surplus inventory sale. Today the oddball Model T V8 resides in a private collection.