The Cadillac

Cadillac

Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...

 Type V-63 was a large, luxurious automobile introduced in September 1923 as a 1924 model

Model year

The model year of a product is a number used worldwide, but with a high level of prominence in North America, to describe approximately when a product was produced, and indicates the coinciding base specification of that product....

, replacing the previous Type 61.

The V-63 used an improved version of the L-head V8 engine

Cadillac V8 engine

Cadillac was the first automobile maker to mass produce a V8 engine. The company has produced eight generations of V8s since 1914, and was the last General Motors division to retain its own V8 design.-L-Head:...

 that made Cadillac famous. The main innovation was a cross-plane crankshaft

Crankshaft

The crankshaft, sometimes casually abbreviated to crank, is the part of an engine which translates reciprocating linear piston motion into rotation...

 which improved balance and smoothness. This design required complex mathematical analysis, and was simultaneously patented by Peerless

Peerless

Peerless was a United States automobile produced by the Peerless Motor Company of Cleveland, Ohio from 1900 to 1931. The company was known for building high-quality, precision luxury automobiles. Peerless' factory was located at 9400 Quincy Avenue in Cleveland...

. Both companies agreed to share the innovation, which has now become common. Another innovation in the V-63 was front-wheel brakes.

A line of "Custom" bodies was added for 1925, but the vehicle was otherwise largely unchanged. The line was refreshed for 1926 as the Series 314.