High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Ford flathead V8 (often called simply the Ford flathead, flathead Ford, or simply flatty, when the context is implicit, such as in hot-rodding) was a flathead V8 engine designed by the Ford Motor Company and built by Ford and various licensees. During the engine's first decade of production, when overhead-valve engines were rare, it was usually known simply as the Ford V?8, and the first car model in which it was installed, the Model 18, was (and still is) often called simply the "Ford V?8", after its new engine. When the engine was introduced in 1932, it was a market first in several respects: in cars that were affordable to the emerging mass market consumer, it was the first 8-cylinder, the first V8, and the first V engine to become available. It was the first independently designed and built V8 engine produced by Ford for mass production, and it ranks as one of the company's most important developments. A fascination with...