My Favorite Small-Block

Bob Lutz
GM North America Chairman and Vice Chairman, Product Development
Opel's race-spec 283s


I was at Opel in 1964-1965 when we introduced the Opel luxury car, the Diplomat, using what was then the first volume-produced V-8 in the German luxury market. It was the 283cid small-block, and it provided performance vastly superior to that of the 3.0-liter injected-sixes offered by Mercedes. A lot of the initial 283s failed in high-speed durability, much to the surprise and disbelief of Chevrolet, which had experienced no failures in the U.S. So it sent us the heavy-duty "Police Interceptor" package, with more oil capacity, more cooling, and premium bearings. They all failed, too. Next, we got some selected Corvette parts installed, but the results were only marginally better.

The folks in the U.S. grew impatient and questioned Opel's test results. When they learned we were designing in durability to cover 125-mph autobahn driving for hours on end, in hot weather, they were categorical: "Your customers are nuts! You need to explain that one shouldn't drive over 70 mph--it isn't safe!" That clearly not being an option in speed-crazed Germany, we wound up with a 283 small-block of essentially endurance-racing specification, including sodium-cooled exhaust valves, special pistons, unique forged connecting rods, tri-metal bearings, a massive cast, finned aluminum oil pan, and a huge oil cooler. It was a technical success and resulted in a great European car with an American V-8, but the superior size and performance weren't enough to offset the glamour and romance of the three-pointed star.

Jim Hall
Race-car driver and engineer
My Chevy pickup motor

In the late 1950s, I put together a Lister-Chevy. It was a mean car. I took it down to an SCCA regional race at San Marcos, Texas, and blew the engine on Saturday. We were standing around, scratching our heads trying to figure out what to do. We used to tow the Lister around with a Chevy pickup. You can probably guess what happened next: We pulled the engine out of the truck, swapped it in, and I won the race on Sunday. Afterward, we pulled the motor out of the race car, put it back in the pickup, and towed the race car back home.

Of course, I stayed with Chevy V-8s over the years, right from the first Troutman and Barnes-built Chaparral I in about 1960. We tried the Buick-Olds-Pontiac engine, but it just hadn't had the hot-rodders' attention that Chevy had had, so we stayed with it. Then we fell into those aluminum-block engines later on with Roger Penske. I've had a good run with Chevrolet, and the small-block was one of the things that made the Chaparral program successful.