The Line between Faith and Folly

Innovation is one of the most fruitful and oft-examined topics in the history of technology. What motivates innovators, and how they sustain that motivation through the setbacks they encounter when pushing technological boundaries, has lead to examinations of the economic aspects of technological enthusiasm. In a paper presented at the 2004 SHOT conference in Amsterdam, Philip Scranton suggested another factor: faith. As Scranton put it, "Being able to sustain action under uncertainty through belief in things not yet seen is not just a matter for religious domains. It is, I would argue, central to technological innovation and not just optimism dressed up in fancy garb." Scranton focused his paper on the difficulties American engineers encountered building jet engines after World War II. Two less dramatic but no less illustrative examples from the collections of the Henry Ford are pictured here. Both are eight-cylinder automobile engines. Both were the brainchildren of Henry Ford. One was an abject failure. The other was a rousing success. Both severely tested the faith of Ford and his organization.

The odd-looking engine in figure 1 has two banks of four cylinders arranged around a central crankshaft, much like a radial aircraft engine. Because of its shape it was known within the Ford Motor Company as the X-engine. The design seems to have appealed to Henry Ford because it was unique and compact, and because he believed that four- or eight-cylinder engines were inherently better balanced than six-cylinder engines. Ford set the X-8 project in motion sometime in 1920, and work continued fitfully for several years. In April 1925 an air-cooled prototype was ready for road testing. The engine was too heavy for a Model T chassis, so it was installed in an Oldsmobile chassis bought for the purpose. The results were not encouraging. The lower cylinders fouled inside with lubricating oil, while dirt and water thrown up from the ground caused continuous trouble for the lower spark plugs. In addition, to obtain sufficient ground clearance for the lower cylinders the engine had to be mounted relatively high in the frame. This put the driveshaft well above the normal floor level, creating comfort and access problems for passengers.

Figure 1.

Ford X-8 engine prototype. (Courtesy of the Henry Ford, neg. no. P.189.29635.)

Despite the problems, Ford believed implicitly in the project and pushed ahead relentlessly. Several X-8 variations were built, some air cooled, some water cooled. All exhibited similar drawbacks. Indeed, when conservators at the Henry Ford removed the cylinder heads from one of the surviving engines, the lower combustion chambers were found to be packed with carbon. In late 1926 declining Model T sales finally caught Henry Ford's attention, and he turned from his radical engine to developing a conventional car, the Model A, to replace the Tin Lizzie.

Ford had not given up on a breakthrough power source, however. In 1929 Chevrolet introduced an outstanding six-cylinder engine, making the Model A's four-cylinder seem outdated and underpowered. Ford concluded that he would see Chevrolet's six and raise it two: he would produce a V-8. The result is shown in figure 2.

V-8 engines were hardly new. They had been around since the early twentieth century, used in both automobiles and aircraft. But V-8s typically featured cylinder blocks made up of a pair of four-cylinder banks bolted to a common crankcase, resulting in an engine that was both heavy and expensive to manufacture. Such an engine would not do in a light, inexpensive Ford. Henry saw that for a Ford V-8 to be successful the cylinder block had to be cast as a single piece. High-volume production of such a casting had never been attempted before. General Motors did produce one-piece blocks for its 1929 Viking at the rate of about four thousand per year, and in 1930 GM made some twenty-four thousand one-piece V-8 blocks for the Oakland. In its worst year, Ford V-8 production never fell below...