Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-03-02
SECRET STORY
OF FIRST EIGHT
A Few Inside Facts About
Birth of. Cadillac V-Type
Engine

An interesting bit of new news
of yesterday" is contained in a story
now first told by an official of the
Cadillac Company about the design
ing and building of the eight-cylinder
F-type engine which was introduced
by the Cadillac in this country as an
automobile power plant in August,
1914.
d. Mccall White, designer of the
engine, and now Vice-president of
the Cadillac Company, came to this
country from England incognito,
and was introduced as Mr.. David
Wilson, of the Phoenix Manufactur-
ing Company" With one assistant
he went to various factories in the
east, where patterns were made and
parts built to his specifications. For
the most part the work was done
in obscure shops. AS an example
of the precautions taken, the
forked connecting rods were manu-
factured in one place and the
straight connecting rods in another,
so no one would associate them and
gain a possible clue
The first crankcase casting was
made in a small foundry in Wor-
cester Mass, at about midnight,
and the sand was cleaned out OF
the casting in the light of automo-
bile headlamps in the yard behind
the building.
The parts were shipped to Detroit
separately. The cylinder blocks
made the journey in Pullman car.
The assembling continued day and
night for several weeks in an old
one-story shack on the bank of the
Detroit river, several miles from the
Cadillac factory. The only approach
to the building was through a de-
vious alleyway. The few persons
who knew the secret and worked
on the engine, when they visited the
hidden workshop, left their cars
several blocks away on main
street and never approached the
building in groups. All of the win
dows in the little shop were frosted,
and armed men guarded the build
ing day and night.
Out of the many thousands OF
men employed by the company, per-
haps twenty-five knew the secret.
The drafting was done behind locked
doors in a downtown office build
ing, and at night the drawings were
locked in a vault.
The first engine was finished at
about 5 o'clock one afternoon. Mr..
White and a number of other off,
cials were present when it started
to turn over on its own power for
the first time They all stood around
the engine with a feeling that big
job had been completed. Here is
the quietest demmed engine in De-
troit," is the way Mr.. White. with
a far-away look in his eyes, is said
to have voiced his feelings.
When the car was tested it was
driven only in the back streets of
Detroit. When the test driver
thought he saw any one looking at
him suspiciously he opened the cut
out on one side, and to all appear
ance he was driving a four-cylinder
car. The idea prevailed in the au-
tomobile world that the Cadillac
had something up it sleeve, and as
a sort of camoufage a unique four
cylinder engine was actually built.
1t had long cylinders and many
strange features. The building of
this four-cylinder engine was COW
cred up just enough so that it
would be sure to leak out and it did.
The real truth was not known
until the Cadillac Company chose to
announce to the public that its
Forthcoming product would be driv-
en- by the first V-type eight-cylinder
engine developed and built in this
country.