Gearhead Aside

        I am much enjoying Paula's James Bond themed April A-Z exercise. In today's post, she writes about the movie, Diamonds are Forever. I admit I have all but forgotten these stories, seen at the movies years and years ago, sometimes seen again on TV. In this case, I even read the paperback. 

       A favorite aside of this story is when it introduces the Studillac, the car belonging to Felix Leiter, the American CIA agent, and friend of Bond's. The Studillac is so named because it was a Studebaker with a Cadillac engine in it. The Cadillac engine, in those days, was a real hot-rod powerplant, and through a fluke, it fit exactly into the Studebaker's engine compartment. 

        The reason for this is that about that time Studebaker acquired an engineer from General Motors who had been previously assigned to GM's Cadillac division. To make his new job a little easier, he designed the Studebaker so the engine would have the exact same mounting points as the Cadillac. Hence, a Cadillac engine would bolt right in with minimal modifications otherwise.  To do so made the Studillac obscenely over-powered and, in fact, a good match for the DB4. 

        As a side note, I once had a '55 Chevy with a Cadillac engine in it. It was, shall we say, NOT elegant, but it did, as we used to say, haul ass. I didn't put it together, myself, but traded for it with cash and a '49 Ford that I had. 

        It broke down a lot, mostly due to being overpowered, and I happily got rid of it by partaking in a Byzantine three-way trade choregraphed by a high school buddy who wanted another guy's motorcycle, who wanted the '55, and I wound up with a '57 Chevy 4-wheel drive pickup truck. It also broke down occasionally, and really didn't get around all that great, for a 4-wheel drive vehicle. 

        Good times. Truly. I wish I was that stupid again, because it was fun.