Studebaker introduced an overhead-valve V8 in 1951, years before Ford or Chevrolet, and it was an impressive achievement for a company a fraction of the size of the mighty Big Three.
Introduced in 1951 on the deluxe-sized Commander line, the Studebaker V8 beat Ford and Chevrolet to the market with a postwar overhead-valve V8 by several years. Months earlier, Studebaker had pulled off a similar coup with the company’s first automatic transmission, which was developed in collaboration with Borg-Warner and marketed as Automatic Drive. We might not think of Studebaker as an industry innovator in those days, but it seems the South Bend automaker could hold its own in engineering against the production giants of the Motor City—for the time being at least.
Developed by Studebaker engineers Eugene Hardig, Stanwood Sparrow, and T.A. Scherger and crew, the ’51 Studebaker V8 has a striking physical resemblance to the Cadillac overhead-valve V8 introduced in 1949. Indeed, in industry lore it is often claimed that Studebaker copied the Cadillac design, and to give weight to that theory, the intake manifolds of the two V8s are nearly interchangeable. But on the other hand, the Studebaker V8 does not share some of the Cadillac’s more advanced features. It’s as though the Studebaker engineers elected to stay on familiar ground with their OHV V8, to stick to what they knew best.
For example, the Studebaker V8 does not share the Cadillac’s slipper pistons with scalloped skirts for crankshaft clearance, which allowed a more compact cylinder block. Instead, Studebaker opted for traditional full-skirted pistons (cutaway above) and a tall deck height of more than 10 inches. As a result of this decision and others, including a generous bore spacing of 4.500 inches, the Studebaker V8 is rather large and heavy for an engine of its displacement. With a bore of 3.375 inches and a stroke of 3.25 inches in its original form, the V8 displaced just 232.6 cubic inches, but still came remarkably close to the size and weight of the Cadillac V8, which boasted 331 cubic inches.
Other conservative features included timing gears to drive the camshaft rather than sprockets and a silent chain, and no provision in the design for hydraulic valve lifters. All Studebaker V8s until the end of production in model year 1964 were equipped with solid lifters, a curious throwback for the times.
A fairly typical postwar American V8 in other ways, the Studebaker featured a conventional firing order of 18436572 with the cylinders numbered 1357L and 2468R. Both the block and cylinder heads were gray cast iron, it could almost go without saying in the American auto industry of 1951. The combustion chambers were fully machined and in the original plan, various piston deck heights could be used (above) to adjust the compression ratio as needed.
Note the dinky-looking valve diameters in the illustration above. In this case the art is true to life as the valve diameters were relatively tiny at 1.28 inches for the exhaust and 1.406 inches for the intake. These and other features illustrate that the Studebaker V8 was never intended for motorsports use. In their SAE paper celebrating the new engine (SAE no. 510203) authors Hardig, Sparrow, and T.A. Scherger constantly refer to fuel economy as a key design consideration, while performance is given only a passing mention. At its ’51 introduction, the V8 sported a conservative 7.0:1 compression ratio and was rated at 120 hp.
In 1955, displacement was increased to 259.2 CID and increased again to 289 CID in 1956. There was also a smaller 224.3 CID economy version in 1955. Due to the engine’s built-in breathing limitations, belt-drive centrifugal superchargers were employed a few times in an attempt to keep up with the Detroit horsepower wars: McCulloch blowers in 1957-58 and Paxton units in 1963-64.
It’s fair to say that the top of the heap in Studebaker factory performance is the ’63-64 R2 package, above. With a Paxton SN60 blower supplying 6 lbs of boost (Paxton, McCulloch’s successor, was then a Studebaker division) this 289 CID V8 was rated at 289 hp. (There were also R3, R4, and R5 versions, but they weren’t really volume production engines.) While the original Studebaker V8 remained in production from 1961 until 1964, the engine did not live to see the end of Studebaker as a carmaker. For the final two years of production in ’65-’66, Studebakers were built exclusively in Canada and were powered by Chevrolet engines.
…and the 304?
R3, R4, and R5 engines. Not included here for reasons stated.
Our family had 5 Studebaker V8s between 1951 and 1962, a ’51 Commander, a ’55 and ’57’s, a ’60 Lark and a ’62 Hawk. We lived in Minnesota on the Canadian border where -20 was common in the winter and much worse possible. We had these because they were absolutely reliable winter starters. My mom, who was a good driver but otherwise knew nothing about cars, would park her Lark on the street, and go out in the morning absolutely confident it would start. It had to be left in low gear because it couldn’t be shifted for the first few hundred yards, and the nylon tires would freeze flat. But it would start and she always got to work on time!
The 289 was introduced for ’56, not ’57.
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I think this story would have a more positive tone about the Studebaker V8 had Mac’s included more about the developmental background of the engine. Some of the things we perceive today as being limitations to the engine had a sound basis in fact: Much of the development work on the engine had been guided by studies at the Kettering Institute which was predicting very high octane gasoline and engines with high compression ratios to burn the high octane fuel.
Thus the Studebaker V8 was designed from the start to handle compression ratios as high as 14-1. This was the intent despite the low compression ratio the engine had when first introduced.
The weight of the engine was a by-product of the need to build an engine tough enough to take the pressures of high-compression combustion. This was also a factor in the gear-driven camshaft and solid lifters. This was one tough little engine and one of the best V8s of the era!
Thanks for correcting the typo on the 259. I disagree about the rest.
Here it is: America’s Best V8 engine:
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/americas-best-v-8-engine-studebaker#comments-block
MCG— Interesting article, but several important facts omitted, leaving me with the impression that you don’t like the engine and won’t be convinced otherwise. You spend time noting how small the valves were, but never mention the cylinder heads were redesigned for the 1955 model year, and from then on had considerably larger valves. You never mention the 6 (yes, SIX) head bolts surrounding every cylinder… most engines only have 4, Chevys had 5. You don’t mention the high nickel-content castings, for extreme longevity. You fail to notice that every single Studebaker V8 has forged crankshafts, and forged rods. In fact, an exhaustive article in a recent issue of Hemings magazine correctly (in my opinion) identifies the Studebaker V8 as the finest American V8 ever made. As to the remainder of your article… “I disagree with the rest”.
PREACH, Brother! 👍👍👍👍
You can count all the successful Studebakers in NHRA and NASCAR on your fingers. That’s the long and the short of it.
OK – We get it. You just don’t like Studebaker.
We need no further evidence.
Studebaker’s Wins in racing were roughly proportional to their market share & they often punched above their weight.
Bye bye!
I like the Studebaker V8 just fine but racing was not its thing.
Thank You Kenny Good Word s I;m Goanna Get One Now! Wow.
“These and other features illustrate that the Studebaker V8 was never intended for motorsports use.”
This would come as quite a shock to my recently deceased uncle, who built many extremely competitive Studebaker engines between his high school days in the mid-’50s and about 1970, and often talked about how easy it was to build a Studebaker to make impressive power, as compared to many of the more “mainstream” engines.
And dat be a fack, Jack!
Despite the fact that Studebaker quit building those engines in 1964 an amazing number of them are still used in various track events.
It’s amazing because you almost never see them.
Andy Granatelli worked wonders with the Studebaker V8 in the Avanti. Many of those Studebaker records still stand.
Here’s a Commander V8 racing at Spa:
For 1950 the Stude engine was quite good. They were strong reliable engines but as Mac has pointed out not real performers. 50 years ago I had a g/f with a wagon with I think 259 engine. Torquey and reliable but not real fast
A friend raced [in historics] a GT with 289 Stude. Actually went quite well BUT the keyed rear hubs kept breaking with wheels bailing off. So it got [not legally] a 9″.The Stude parts were near impossible to get so it ended up with a near stock 400 Chev [not the 283 it shoild have had] and while never a winner it went ok and made up the midfield numbers. For faster heended up with a Mustang!
This is just my opinion, but I think the “Visible V8” toy is actually the Studebaker V8. It’s very clearly a 1950’s style engine of some sort, and the stude seems to be the closest match. Discuss amongst yourselves.
I have owned all three a 232 a 259 and a 289 They are with proper maintenance, Indestructible!
I would have thought a mention of the hill holder feature would have been part of the article.
Hill Holder was part of the braking system, not the engine, and was first offered by Studebaker in 1936, 15 years before the V8 was introduced.