Cadillac & Tanks RE: <VV> Re: Porsche/Corvair Engine Casting

[Tony Underwood]

At 12:30 hours 11/14/2005, Joel Rushworth - Morton-Clarke Victoria wrote:
>Wasn't Ed Cole working for Cadillac during the war, making rear engined, air
>cooled tank motors?


There *were* some WW-II tanks built with Caddie V8 engines, two of 
them at a time in fact.    There's one still on display at Ledward 
Kaserne in Schweinfurt Germany... I passed by it daily to and from 
work for three years.   This one still has it's original pair of 
Caddie V8s... albeit flatheads and liquid cooled, no air cooled V8s in them.


Now:

There was also a light tank with a riveted hull made of plate steel 
which saw use in the deserts etc and it had an air cooled 9 cylinder 
radial engine that was swiped from aircraft service.   No Caddie 
engine there.

By the way, the M-60A1 main battle tank that the Army used for so 
long also has an air cooled engine, and a boxer at that, built by 
Continental, has 12 cylinders and 750 hp.   When was the last time 
anybody saw an air cooled 12 cylinder diesel?


>  Isn't that where part of the inspiration for the
>Corvair came from?  I thought E.C. had originally proposed a Caddy econo-car
>back in '48 or something, rear engined, called the Cadet?


There's info on the Cadet in several different publications... kinda 
reminded me of a tiny German sedan that was running around in the 
'60s through Europe (Thomas likely knows the one I'm talking 
about)...  note that Opel resurrected the name, in a roundabout sort 
of fashion.


>And if all of the above is true, isn't most of the other Porsche/VW stuff
>mostly just "expert" stories made up to try and make sense of the origins of
>the Corvair because they're ignorant of E.C.'s familiarity with air-cooled,
>rear engine set ups?

EC's original idea was a rear engined Cad, prototype was a beast with 
6 wheels as I recall.   Later he took his rear engine ideas in a more 
practical direction.


And, of course, everybody automatically thought that VW and Porsche 
was behind everything.

tony..