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Posted by D Sherman on Friday, July 11, 2008 at 19:44:29 :
In Reply to: Re: Kettering Ignition posted by Don Williams on Friday, July 11, 2008 at 18:06:20 :
When my dad bought is '69 Oldsmobile 98, they called the 455 V8 a "Kettering engine". I vaguely remember reading that while Ford was thinking the world would run out of oil, and they'd need to build engines that ran on alcohol, GM went the other direction and Mr Kettering developed a series of engines that would run only on high-octane gasoline. As I recall that oldsmobile got about 10 mpg and would only run on ethyl. Before that he had a '67 Chrysler New Yorker with a 440. Before that he had a '63 Pontiac and '60 Thunderbird with a 350 if I recall. I guess he believed in spreading the wealth around. They all had the handling of an oil tanker when it came to curves, but the 440 and the 455 could really make that big hunk of Detroit iron move on a straightaway. Then came the gas crisis and dad got really depressed.