This trait may be the only thing a Sixties Scout has in common with a new Cadillac CT5
By its very nature, the automobile has identity issues. Rarely can automakers afford to conceive, develop, and market a vehicle with just one customer set in mind, so they either find an acceptable compromise or offer a slate of options to reach a broad range of customers. That can then lead to some strange bedfellows on the showroom floor, including dozens of instances of cars, trucks, and vans that offer four-, six-, and eight-cylinder engine options all at once.
While praising the remarkably long-lasting Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans, I noted that the vans had, late in their run, joined a small list of vehicles available with factory-available fours, sixes, and eights all in the same model year. Predictably, several commenters noted other vehicles on that list, which of course warranted an afternoon spent further researching all the vehicles I could think of that might qualify for that list.
Not saying I exhausted every single instance of a vehicle offering such a wide variety of powerplants, thus covering the spectrum from economy to power, but I came up with enough to offer some broad generalized insights about postwar American history and to justify that afternoon. (If you can think of any more, keep your suggestions coming in the comments.)
By its very nature, the automobile has identity issues. Rarely can automakers afford to conceive, develop, and market a vehicle with just one customer set in mind, so they either find an acceptable compromise or offer a slate of options to reach a broad range of customers. That can then lead to some strange bedfellows on the showroom floor, including dozens of instances of cars, trucks, and vans that offer four-, six-, and eight-cylinder engine options all at once.
While praising the remarkably long-lasting Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans, I noted that the vans had, late in their run, joined a small list of vehicles available with factory-available fours, sixes, and eights all in the same model year. Predictably, several commenters noted other vehicles on that list, which of course warranted an afternoon spent further researching all the vehicles I could think of that might qualify for that list.
Not saying I exhausted every single instance of a vehicle offering such a wide variety of powerplants, thus covering the spectrum from economy to power, but I came up with enough to offer some broad generalized insights about postwar American history and to justify that afternoon. (If you can think of any more, keep your suggestions coming in the comments.)
4/6/8 Criteria
First, some ground rules for my search. I didn’t care about the type of fuel or the cylinder configuration, only the actual cylinder count. I also didn’t consider the recent (and not-so-recent) multi-displacement systems that electronically shut off certain cylinders; I wanted actual effort on the part of the automakers to build a vehicle small or light enough for a four-cylinder to push around but also with enough room in the engine bay for a V-8. And I’m not counting versions built with an additional engine choice by a company other than the original carmaker (sorry, Ford Capri Mk1). Some British models did offer fours, sixes, and eights at various times in their model runs, but not at the same time, so I’m not counting them. I am counting vehicles that used engines in a hybrid configuration as well as vehicles that offered fours, sixes, and eights at the same time but not in the same market.
Based on those criteria, this appears to be a phenomenon that generally occurred in three different time periods in postwar history: the mid- to late Sixties, when American carmakers engaged in a horsepower war at the same time that the American car-buying public started to demand greater thrift in their cars; the mid-Seventies into the Eighties, when American carmakers and car buyers, shocked by the oil crises and the need for greater pollution controls, nevertheless still wanted power, still wanted size, and still hadn’t processed the geopolitical implications of the price of oil; and the mid-2010s to the present, when the carmakers’ addiction to ratcheting vehicle size (and ratcheting profits) put them at odds with equally more stringent CAFE figures, leading them to implement technological solutions like turbocharged and hybridized four-cylinders to try to maximize power from minimal engine sizes.
That said, not every vehicle that I or our readers identified fits neatly into those eras, and other than a few gaps here and there, 4/6/8 vehicles have been with us pretty consistently since the Sixties.
Many thanks to those of you who chimed in on the original version of this article with your suggestions for further models to investigate. I’ve tried to include all of those below.
1964 to 1970 Chevrolet Chevy II
The earliest instance of a postwar American 4/6/8 vehicle we’ve found dates back to 1964 when Chevrolet dropped a 283-cu.in. V-8 into the Chevy II. The compact already had the Super-Thrift 153 four-cylinder and the Hi-Thrift 194 six-cylinder, and both engines used the small-block V-8’s bellhousing bolt pattern, so it didn’t take much engineering to add the V-8. In 1966, Chevrolet relegated the 153 to the basest of base-model Chevy IIs, but the division still kept the engine on the books through the 1970 model year.
1966 to 1969 Checker
If thrifty Sixties cars make perfect candidates for the 4/6/8 trifecta, then of course we have to include Checker (we considered Rambler and Studebaker, but both of those carmakers used six-cylinders as base engines), which, as it turns out, qualified for the list sometime in the mid- to late Sixties when it offered Perkins four-cylinder diesels alongside the Chevrolet-sourced 230-cu.in. straight-six and 327-cu.in. V-8. According to the Internet Checker Taxi Archives, the Perkins option lasted from 1967 to 1969 here in the States, while Israel-bound Checkers received the diesels starting in 1966. The ICTA also notes that Studebaker offered a Perkins diesel in 1963, which would put that car on the list as well.
1967 to 1971 International Harvester Scout 800
International Harvester, like Pontiac, took a unique approach to crafting a four-cylinder by essentially lobbing off half of a V-8’s cylinders, so the IH Scout 800, with a base 152-cu.in. slant-four, easily accommodated International’s V-8 starting in 1967. To fill the gap between the two, International used AMC’s 232-cu.in. straight-six for a brief period in the late Sixties, though as we can see from the brochure pages above, the company didn’t seem to publicize that option well.