Cadillac built this V8 for luxury  not for 24 hours of flat-out punishment at Le Mans. But in 1950, it ended up doing something almost nobody expected.

This was an engine designed to be smooth, quiet, and refined on American roads. Yet that same Cadillac V8 found itself facing one of the toughest endurance races in the world  and finished third in its class.

So what was hiding inside Cadillac’s new V8 that allowed a luxury-car engine to survive Le Mans? And how did an engine never intended for racing become part of one of Cadillac’s most remarkable competition stories?

This is the story of Cadillac’s early overhead-valve V8  and the race it was never supposed to run.

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