This is a coffee table built around a Ford Flathead V8. The block has been painted red and it’s fitted with finned Offenhauser cylinder heads, an Offenhauser intake manifold, and triple Stromberg two-barrel carburetors.
Coffee tables like this have become increasingly popular in recent years as they provide a great conversation piece, and an unusual way to bring a room together. Some use them in their garages or sheds, others in their living rooms – if they have an understanding spouse.
The Ford Flathead V8 is one of the most famous and historically significant engines of the 20th century, and this one is fitted with a series of period-correct performance upgrades.
The Importance Of The Ford Flathead V8
In the late 1920s, Henry Ford envisioned a new low-cost V8 engine that could be cast as a single unit – something that had never been done before due to the complexity of the block. The challenge was significant, as earlier V8 engines were typically expensive and difficult to produce.
The development of tis cast iron block took years, the process of sand casting it without errors was the main hold up, but once the engineers at Ford got it figured out and developed a method of mass-producing the iron blocks reliably, they changed the face of the automotive landscape in the United States.
The result was the 221 cubic inch (3.6 liter) Flathead V8, which debuted in the 1932 Ford Model 18. Producing 65 bhp, the engine use a side-valve (flathead) design, which vastly simplified production and maintenance, as no valve gear or porting was needed in the heads. Though this design restricted airflow compared to overhead-valve (OHV) engines, the Flathead’s affordability and ease of use outweighed its limitations (initially).
With the release of the V8-powered Ford Model 18 Americans suddenly had access to an affordable V8 automobile, and they sold in vast numbers. As they depreciated and entered the secondhand market, they formed the foundations of the hot rod movement, and today the ’32 Ford V8 is still considered by many to be the purist foundation on which to build a rod.
The Ford Flathead V8 Coffee Table Shown Here
The coffee table you see here is one of the nicest Flathead V8 examples we’ve seen in recent memory. It comes with a range of aftermarket performance parts fitted including triple Stromberg two-barrel carburetors, an alloy Offenhauser intake manifold, finned Offenhauser cylinder heads, and chromed exhaust headers.
The glass tabletop has a cutaway section allowing the triple Stromberg two-barrel carburetors to rise through the middle.
It’s also fitted with a distributor, spark plug wires, and Autolite spark plugs, making it look like it’s almost ready to run. It’s riding on a set of caster wheels to make it easy to move around when needed – an important feature given the weight of 300 lbs.
This coffee table is now being offered for sale out of Oakland, California on Bring a Trailer with no reserve, and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more or place a bid.
Images courtesy of Michael Alan Ross supplied by Bring a Trailer
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
