Home grown hero

It wouldn’t happen today. Even if we were still manufacturing cars in Australia... But even thinking back to the simpler times of the 1960s, it's hard to imagine exactly how and why the powers-that-be in GM’s Detroit, Michigan, headquarters could have green lighted the plan of its far-flung Australian Holden brand to develop and manufacture its own bespoke V8 engine. Not when GM had already invented that wheel a few years earlier with the first small block Chev – a cast-iron V8 of around 4.6-litres capacity, with a single camshaft and two valves per cylinder, pushrod operated, just like Holden’s V8 proposal.

And yet they did, after an exhaustive analysis of the prototype Holden V8 – although in the end it seems they only gave the project the go-ahead after Holden’s engine design group chief Fred James boldly informed his American superiors that it was a fait accompli anyway: the factory was already tooled up and ready to start production!

The initial impetus for an Aussie V8 was not driven by any perceived need for a V8 in Holden’s engine arsenal. Rather, it was simply that a larger capacity engine was required. The company’s forward planners in the early ‘60s anticipated that to meet future market trends an engine of roughly 250 cubic-inch capacity (4.1-litre) would be required by the end of the decade. The newly introduced 179 ‘Red’ six was never going to fit that bill. The only alternative was an all-new, larger engine.