Oldsmobile Put a Rocket V8 in the Cheapest Body They Had — and Invented Everything.

Red Byron could not work a clutch pedal. Flak had torn his left leg apart on his 58th mission as a B-24 flight engineer, so his mechanic built a steel stirrup and bolted Byron's boot into it before the start. On the sand at Daytona Beach on July 10, 1949, he took the flag at just under 81 mph, and three more cars of the same make and model came across the line behind him. All four were mid priced family sedans carrying an engine designed for a bigger, costlier car. We cover Gilbert Burrell sketching an overhead valve V8 during the 1945 strike with no budget and nobody asking, Cadillac twice trying to kill it, Harold Metzel proposing the swap into the cheap 76 body, and 100,273 Series 88s sold in a single year. Oldsmobile won 5 of NASCAR's 8 races that season, not the 6 of 9 you usually hear, and the record still points one way. First muscle car. The 1949 Rocket 88, the 1955 Chrysler 300, or does nothing count until the GTO? Settle it below. #Rocket88 #Oldsmobile #NASCARHistory #FirstMuscleCar #DetroitIron