Ever since Cadillac introduced their first generation of V8s in 1914, they have been accredited as the first American automaker to mass-produce a V8 engine. Since that time, Cadillac has produced eight generations of V8 engine design, and they were the last GM sector to retain their own original engine design.

The 1950s would be the first decade to see the Cadillac V8 modified for hot-rodding; many of the earliest racers and rodders would replace the hydraulic lifters and rocker arms of Cadillac’s original overhead valve design with solid lifters and adjustable rockers, components that were much more commonly used in race engines of the time.

Cadillac, along with Oldsmobile, would introduce the first overhead-valve V8 in 1949. Cadillac’s version of the overhead V8, the 331 motor, was identical in appearance to the first generation of AMC V8s that were used by Studebaker, and so many of the earliest valvetrain swaps that were done on the Cadillac motor used parts from the Studebaker’s V8.

The overhead-valve motors were also the first to use an oiling scheme in which oil entered the motor through a cast-in passage above and between the lifter galleries, feeding oil to the camshaft and crankshaft through grooves cast-into the cam bores.

This overhead-valve design would become one of Cadillac’s cornerstone designs, and it was bored out to 365 cubic inches by 1956, producing 335bhp in a 3/2-barrel version by ’58.

Svenmeister of Hard Core Kustoms shows us what can be done with the legendary Caddy V8, when he implanted it into the ’52 Chevy truck that became the rat rod you see today. A thing of mix-matching genius, Svenmeister’s rat rod, dubbed the “Chevillac Kabriolet,” has 800 some-odd hours of “kustomizing” put in to it. A testament to old-school rodding, Svenmeister’s Kabriolet rod is a stark reminder of hot rodding’s most primitive grassroots.