At SO-CAL, Tony was instrumental in launching the company’s influential clothing line as well as numerous other products. Meanwhile, he and partner Jimmy Shine rebuilt a 1929 Model A Ford to go 200 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats, where they set a record at 206.454 mph.
A call from General Motors initiated SO-CAL’s return to the Bonneville Salt Flats almost 60 years after the company had set numerous land speed records there. Over a period of six years General Motors and SO-CAL set even more land speed records.
Thacker’s recognition in the hot rod field initiated a call from Wally Parks, founder of the National Hot Rod Association, and an offer to run the NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona, California. Within three years, Tony and his small team were able to turn the ailing not-for-profit into a viable and active international destination.
As exciting as that task was, Tony received an offer in 2012 that he couldn’t refuse: to move to Portland, Oregon, to help plan and build a new educational motorsports museum. The World of Speed opened April 24, 2015. The experiential edutainment venue uses the excitement of motorsports to educate young people about career possibilities in the auto and motorsports industries.
After successfully opening the World of Speed, Tony retired and moved back to Los Angeles. Even in retirement, however, he is as busy as ever, consulting for a number of clients and back in front of a computer working on his first love, book projects.
Around 2000, Mike Herman started at H&H Flatheads, where Tony Thacker really admired his drive, energy, and marketing savvy, as he always worked hard to get the H&H name to the forefront. Mike’s grandfather Max Herman Sr. and his father, Max Herman Jr. founded the company. They started in their current location in 1972 rebuilding T, A, B, and V-8 flathead engines, and their reputation continues worldwide. Since Mike took over the V-8 flathead side of the business in 2002, he has built and shipped more than 1,200 engines, more or less two every week.
Even in the early days, Mike was quick to see the potential, and as industry founders such as Barney Navarro, Al Sharp, and Ken Austin retired from active business, he purchased their assets and diligently put their innovative products back into production. In most cases, when he could, he used the original pattern makers and the original foundries. And although his degree is in management and marketing, he knows every job in the shop, from sweeping the floor to management and machining the blocks, his work ethic and techniques instilled by his knowledgeable father.
I’m not sure when Mike Herman and I became acquainted, but it seems as if it was in the early 2000s, when I was marketing director at SO-CAL Speed Shop and he was just starting out at H&H Flatheads.
We had intended to collaborate on this book some years ago, but circumstances dictated otherwise. However, the planet gears recently aligned, and we were able to work together to make it happen. It wasn’t easy.
Although I had written books about the 1932 Ford, originally in 1982 and then a revised edition to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Deuce in 2007, they were primarily a historical reflection and to some extent a socioeconomic history of the 1932 V-8 and its impact on society. I didn’t get too much into bearing sizes.
Flathead Ford V-8 rebuilding: piece of cake, I thought. However, I quickly realized that while the flathead is a simple enough engine, its idiosyncrasies, changes, and development are in fact quite complicated.
Henry Ford’s stubbornness resulted in the first V-8 being less than its potential. The water pumps literally sucked. The engine overheated and used oil, but nevertheless it had potential. Over the ensuing years, Ford engineers, with and without Henry’s permission, tweaked the eight until it was great and in so doing gave the enthusiast the world’s first affordable performance V-8, much as Ford’s Model T had given the farmer the means of liberating himself from the land.
Over the years, numerous books have addressed the flathead, its restoration, tuning, and even supercharging, but none has covered it all; the subject is just too big. Likewise, we had to compromise and concentrate on the most popular engine: the 1949–1953 8BA.
Why the 8BA? Well, it was the culmination of the flathead’s development. Ford had done as much as it could to refine the concept, but the overheads were coming as technology moved on. Only overseas did development continue. Consequently, the 8BA is as good as a flathead gets. Plenty of these are available, as are parts and speed equipment. It’s a great hot rod engine.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FORD FLATHEAD V-8
Many people mistakenly believe that the Ford flathead V-8 was the first V-8 engine. It proved to be extremely popular until the overhead valve engines arrived and was the first V-8 readily available to the masses, but it was not the first. Léon Levavasseur took out the first patent for a V-8 gasoline engine in 1902. Although not a production engine, it was utilized in several aircraft and competition speedboats of the day. Meanwhile, American motorcycle builder and aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss installed one of his 269-ci aircraft V-8s in a motorcycle and set an unofficial land speed record of 136.36 mph in 1906.
Britain’s Rolls-Royce created the first automotive V-8, but only three were produced, in 1905 and 1906, before Rolls-Royce reverted to its trusted straight-6. In 1910 French automobile and railcar manufacturer De Dion-Bouton unveiled a 474-ci automotive V-8, which it displayed in New York in 1912. Although few were actually produced, they served as inspiration for several U.S. manufacturers.
Cadillac, for example, sold 13,000 flathead V-8 vehicles in 1914. The Cadillac was a sophisticated unit with cast-iron, paired, closed-head cylinders bolted to an aluminum crankcase, and it used a flat-plane crankshaft. Many historians consider this to be the first true production V-8 automotive engine.
General Motors was quick to follow Cadillac’s success with a flathead V-8 for Oldsmobile in 1916. The next year saw Chevrolet follow suit with a 288-ci engine for its Series D autos. When Chevrolet became part of General Motors in 1918, however, its V-8 was discontinued in favor of more economical engines.
W. R. Campbell, president of Ford Motor Company Canada, stamps the first V-8 produced in Windsor, Ontario. Note the early long-neck water pumps. Canadian blocks were produced until 1954, as were Australian blocks. (Photo Courtesy Fordimages.com)
Across town at Highland Park, Henry Ford had been experimenting with V-8 engines as early as 1922 (he didn’t like to follow the competition), but by 1928 he had decided, “to go from a four to an eight, because Chevrolet is going to a six.”
Ford engineers gathered up the competitors’ V-8s, including one of their own Lincolns (Lincoln had introduced a V-8 in 1921, the year before Henry Ford purchased the company), but they were complicated assemblies with separate cast barrels bolted to a crankcase. Ford wanted something much simpler for the new car he was developing to replace the Model A. Ford had been able to cast the Model T cylinders and crankcase en bloc (that is, in one piece), and he wanted the same mono construction for his V-8.
To begin, Ford engineers came up with two designs, one of 299 ci and another of 232 ci designated Model 24, which Henry eventually chose. The first engine ran at the beginning of 1931, and soon more were assembled and installed into Model As for testing.
Eventually known as the Model 18 (1 for first and 8 for, well, eight cylinders), the new Ford V-8 was unique. In addition to the revolutionary, one-piece casting, Ford wanted the exhaust passage running through the block for quick warm-ups because