Pentastar Muscle

THE MODERN ERA - 1951

As the decade of the 50s dawned, the motoring public was demanding ever more power from their automobiles. Modern paved highways, even turnpikes, began to crisscross America, much like a plate full of spaghetti. These roads presented all sorts of demands on a vehicle, and buyers wanted cars better equipped to handle these demands. Inline six and eight cylinder engines were no longer able to meet those demands, and it was clear the future lay in the V8 engine. Chrysler responded in 1951 with the now legendary Firepower V8. Those of us in the Mopar hobby affectionately call it the "hemi" due to its hemispherical-shaped combustion chamber. The engine displaced 331.1 cubic inches with a bore and stroke of 4.81x3.63 inches. Horsepower, which seems tame by today's standards, was a mere 180 x 4000 rpm. Compression was just 7.5:1. Modest though these numbers may be, they held the key to what was yet to come.

Dodge received its version of the Hemi engine mid-way through the 1952 model year on selected models and for 1953, Hemi power was a regular production engine. But it was in 1954 that the public started to sit up and take notice of the new and evolutionary engine from Chrysler Corporation as a 3375 pound 1954 Dodge Royal 500 convertible equipped with a 150 horsepower, 241 cubic-inch Hemi V8 was chosen as the Official Pace Car for the 1954 Indianapolis 500. At the other end of the performance spectrum, a 1954 Dodge won the Mobilgas Economy Run with an overall average of 25.3873 miles per gallon.