About The 49 Cadillac Series 62 Series
The Series 62 was a series of cars produced by Cadillac, designed to replace the mid-sized Series 70 in 1941. It remained in production through 1964, having been renamed Series 6200, when it was replaced by the Cadillac Calais name.
Postwar History of Cadillacs
Postwar Cadillacs, incorporating the ideas of General Motors styling chief Harley J. Earl, innovated many of the styling features that came to be synonymous with the classic (late 1940s-late 1950s) American automobile, including tailfins and wraparound windshields. Cadillac's first tailfins, inspired by the twin rudders of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, appeared in 1948; the 1959 Cadillac was the epitome of the tailfin craze, with the most recognizable tailfins of any production automobile.
Cadillac's other styling attribute was its front bumper designs which became known as Dagmar bumpers or simply Dagmars. What had started out after the war as an artillery shell shaped bumper guard became an increasingly important part of Cadillac's complicated front grille and bumper assembly. As the 1950s wore on, the element was placed higher in the front end design, negating their purpose as bumper guards. They also became more pronounced and were likened to the bosom of 1950s television personality Dagmar. In 1957 the bumpers gained black rubber finishes which only heightened the relationship between the styling element and a stylized, exaggerated bumper design. For 1958 the element was toned down and was completely absent on the 1959 models.
The V-8 Engine
A V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of four cylinders, in most cases set at a right angle to each other but occasionally at some other angle.[1]
In its simplest form, it is basically two straight-4 engines sharing a common crankshaft. This simple configuration, however, has the same secondary dynamic imbalance problems as two straight-4s, resulting in annoying vibrations in large-displacement engines. Most modern automobile V8s use a somewhat more complex crossplane crankshaft with heavy counterweights to eliminate the vibrations. This results in an engine which is more powerful than and nearly as smooth as a straight-6 of equivalent cylinder size, while being considerably less expensive than a V12 engine.
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