Bonnie and Clyde's flathead Ford V8

Ford first introduced their V8 model in 1932 as a way to boost the company's slumping sales Ford had a big problem in 1931 32 they had Ruled The Roost in the 20s with the Model T by 1928 the Model T was pass a what do you do about that they knew that they needed a major breakthrough and they got that with the Flathead Ford V8 it was the performance car of its day first V8 in a popularly priced car and it was a breakthrough in a market dominated by smaller six-cylinder Motors the V8 gave Ford an advantage on the sales floor and Bonnie and Clyde an advantage when out running the police the 221 cubic in engine got its nickname Flathead from the slab shape of its valve cover underneath is a valve in block engine that puts the valves in the block next to the cylinder board the valves open into the adjacent combustion chamber all other V8 powered cars on the market at the time had two things in common they were sold in high pric cars like the Lincoln and their engines were expensive to produce that's because they were cast in two or three pieces that were bold it together Ford made V8 power affordable by casting the flathead V8 in one piece acceleration was brisk 0 to 50 in 10 1/2 seconds and its top speed was just under 82 m mph compare that to the average Dodge of the 1930s that took 15 seconds to do 0 to 50 and the Ford V8 was a road warrior yet for all its speed and relative Comfort eyewitness reports rarely Place Bonnie and Clyde in the Ford V8 following a bank heist Clyde barl would use two cars he would use a very common car like a Plymouth or a Chevrolet to do a robbery uh which was maybe a 4-cylinder engine maybe not very much of a car at all but 2 mi outside of town he would have his Ford V8 so that all the people in town saw was the Plymouth or the Chevy and that's what they reported to police but the real car was the Ford that Bonnie was standing by out in the country Clyde never bought his Ford V8 he stole them imagine that a thief stealing cars but that didn't stop him from wrting Henry Ford praising him for the fine gangster ride it basically said to Mr Ford what a great car you have in the Ford V8 I think one of the lines is for reliability it has all the other cars skinned and he said I steal them exclusively when I can find them Ford's reaction was to label the letter of possible hoax but then proudly put the tribute on display anyway in the Ford Museum in Dearborne Michigan if there was one drawback to the Ford's design that had shared with other cars of the era it was the dangerous doors here on Bonnie side of the car is what they called suicide doors in this car the doors open like this wind would come in like this if she was sitting in here like I am and the door flew open a lot of times not heard but people would fall out and just just suck him out and they called him suicide door it's because of that reason on February 27th 1932 while Bonnie Parker waited in the getaway car Clyde walked into a Lancaster Texas bank and walked out with over $6,000 it was the start of a legendary crimes free helped Along by their V8 powered Ford one thing about the Ford V8 that Clyde liked was it was so rugged and the reason he liked it was because he was terribly hard on cars he would think nothing of driving five six seven even a th000 miles without stopping in on on dirt roads a lot of times in 1934 and that was murderous on cars even in a shootout their car stood up to the onslaught Bonnie and Clyde had been pursued for a long time and they were pretty much making asses of a lot of law enforcement across several States how'd they do it well what's no secret they got help from the 33 Ford V8 Clyde Barrow couldn't have designed a better car himself everything about it from its thick steel body to its powerful 85 horsepower engine was Factory equipped for Crime cars back then and and the Ford in particular there were a lot of Steel in them and this became apparent as they became involved in these shootouts the police didn't pick up on it right away but a c but they would eventually recover these cars and see that most of the bullets from a regular handgun or even a Thompson submachine gun wouldn't go through these steel bodies it was almost like having an armored car one such car recovered by the police also contained photographs that show Bonnie and Clyde's unusual Devotion to their Ford V8 using a Kodak box camera that they kept on the seat they posed for playful snapshots that depict them wielding shotguns and revolvers a spoof of the gangster image they had helped [Music] invent most of the photos they are always near their car because their car was their life uh the only way that they could survive was to be able to run that was Clyde's claim to fame was that he could outrun anybody if they got separated from their car they were done for Bonnie and Clyde after they stole this car drove it day and night and literally lived in the car I imagine that being a bank robber in the 1930s wasn't nearly as glamorous as we make it out to be when you stop and consider that these people were driving around thousands of miles from one crummy little town to the next no air conditioning rudimentary heater at best not a whole lot of entertainment you know they just talked to each other you know not a lot of incar entertainment as we have today it's kind of boring uh pretty boring in a lot in a lot of ways grueling in May of 1934 Bonnie and Clyde were on the road again business as usual this time they were headed from Topeka Kansas to a couple of Bank jobs in Northwest Iowa after that they drove to a safe house in shreport Louisiana then a quick trip to Dallas to see their families before they returned to their safe house director Hoover supervising field PR meanwhile FBI director Jay Edgar Hoover supervised field test to determine just what kind of weapons it would take to stop gangster cars like Bonnie and Clyde's Ford V8 on the morning of May 23rd 1934 Bonnie and Clyde approached a wooded stretch of road just South of Mount Lebanon Louisiana a team of lawmen had been assembled to Ambush the crime couple hoping to fool Clyde into stopping they parked a truck that belonged to a friend of Clyde's alongside the road and jacked it up as if it had a flat tire then the Law Men waited with their Arsenal that includ included Browning automatic rifles whose 30 od6 ammo could easily Pierce even the heavy skin of the Ford V8 but timing would be everything the posi knew that if they stood the fire too early Clyde would sense trouble and turn back but this time Bonnie and Clyde suspected nothing as they neared the Ambush their Flathead engine finally betrayed them not for a lack of power or reliability but for its distinctive sound when Clyde was driving this to the Ambush side the LL were waiting for him he drove It Wide Open they heard this the sound of that big old V8 coming down the road they knew he he was driving a Ford flathead so they heard that coming here comes Clyde get ready guys Bonnie and Clyde came the Ambush site in a kind of a configuration like this and what you're seeing would be about like what they did they came along and the officers would have been over here as the V8 Fort pulled up the law man took aim Clyde slammed his foot on the clutch to downshift and never heard the Hammers fall the car leaped ahead then came to a halt beside the road as a wave of Steel jacketed High Velocity bullets ripped into it Clyde was hit more than 20 times and died instantly Bonnie was hit 26 times the Law Men cautiously approached the car when they opened the passenger door Bonnie fell into an officer's arms she had a slight pulse but by the time he had pushed her back into the car she was [Music] dead law enforcement and the public crowded into the small Louisiana Town to survey the gruesome scene in Marvel at the destruction it had taken only 15 seconds to turn Bonnie and Clyde's Ford V8 from a getaway car into a tomb in the aftermath investigation lawmen discovered another abon and Clyde's Automotive tricks these license plates found under the seat were a disguised for their car they allowed Bonnie and Clyde to change their home state at will to appear to be locals from just about anywhere in the Midwest and the South the car that Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed in now rests in a Nevada Casino 5050 miles outside of Las Vegas parked behind glass barricades and flanked by dummies that looked a little like the famous crime couple visitors come to see the legendary gangster car and count the bullet holes in it I don't know how many people have tried to count the bullet holes and everybody comes up with a different number you can look at the driver's door and you can see that there's at least 30 or 40 holes in the driver's door and another 10 or 12 just below the window and another dozen in the window right behind Clyde's head I would say probably 150 rounds at least were fired most of which hit the car it's been rumored that the casino has refused offers up to a million dollar for Bonnie and Clyde's so-called death car of course it doesn't run but it's got great ventilation

Channel: MFS357

Views: 1,971,166

Keywords: bonnie, and, clyde, bank, robbery, FBI, flathead, ford, v8, jim, knight, sandy, jones

Id: CEoG65Y-vbM

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 06 2008