Lewis
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60 Years of Small-Block: We Salute Chevy’s Iconic V-8 Engine
It was influential. So influential, in fact, that it created ripples that have touched practically every American driver.
The Chevy small-block V-8, celebrating its 60th birthday in 2015, is an automotive icon. Push brand loyalty aside, and it’s difficult to argue otherwise.
Introduced in 1955 (to the delight of hotrodders) as a much-needed upgrade to the under-powered Corvette, the small-block was actually the second V-8 in the brand’s history. The first was in 1917. Ten years passed before the engine was referred to as the small-block, only receiving the nickname because the big-block arrived in 1965.
Over the last 60 years, the small-block’s evolutionary tale includes the debut of fuel injection in 1957; the arrival of the 302-cid version in the all-new Camaro in 1967; the LT1 in the 1970 Corvette; the second-generation LT1, with higher compression and computerized ignition, which rolled out in 1992; the debut of the third-gen LS1, featuring all-aluminum block and oil pan, in the C3 Corvette; the fourth-gen 7.0-liter LS7, which was installed in the Corvette Z06; and the arrival of the fifth-gen small-block, with active fuel management, direct injection and variable timing, in 2014.
To commemorate the small-block’s 60th birthday, the gearheads at Hagerty produced a four-minute time-lapse video showing the teardown, machining and rebuild of one example. After pulling the engine from a 1970 Impala convertible (which was surprising clean on the inside considering it had been driven 120,000 miles), Hagerty’s video team spent seven days documenting the small-block’s transformation: one for teardown, three for machine work at Thirlby Automotive in Traverse City, Mich., another for paint and two for reassembly. Using a special motorized camera slider to make the shots more dynamic, the video was created almost entirely with still images, approximately 20,000 in all.
It was influential. So influential, in fact, that it created ripples that have touched practically every American driver.
Introduced in 1955 (to the delight of hotrodders) as a much-needed upgrade to the under-powered Corvette, the small-block was actually the second V-8 in the brand’s history. The first was in 1917. Ten years passed before the engine was referred to as the small-block, only receiving the nickname because the big-block arrived in 1965.
Over the last 60 years, the small-block’s evolutionary tale includes the debut of fuel injection in 1957; the arrival of the 302-cid version in the all-new Camaro in 1967; the LT1 in the 1970 Corvette; the second-generation LT1, with higher compression and computerized ignition, which rolled out in 1992; the debut of the third-gen LS1, featuring all-aluminum block and oil pan, in the C3 Corvette; the fourth-gen 7.0-liter LS7, which was installed in the Corvette Z06; and the arrival of the fifth-gen small-block, with active fuel management, direct injection and variable timing, in 2014.
To commemorate the small-block’s 60th birthday, the gearheads at Hagerty produced a four-minute time-lapse video showing the teardown, machining and rebuild of one example. After pulling the engine from a 1970 Impala convertible (which was surprising clean on the inside considering it had been driven 120,000 miles), Hagerty’s video team spent seven days documenting the small-block’s transformation: one for teardown, three for machine work at Thirlby Automotive in Traverse City, Mich., another for paint and two for reassembly. Using a special motorized camera slider to make the shots more dynamic, the video was created almost entirely with still images, approximately 20,000 in all.
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