Stutz Vertical Eight History

Under engineer Frederick Moskovics, Stutz reinvented itself in 1926 with a new single-overhead-cam straight-eight engine (287 cu in, 92 hp, with twin-ignition) and a low-slung safety-focused chassis. The car was marketed as the 'Safety Stutz' for innovations novel on any American production car: shatterproof windshield glass, a double-drop worm-drive frame that lowered the center of gravity, narrow windshield pillars for visibility, and reinforced running boards for side-impact protection.

A 4.9-liter Vertical Eight entered at Le Mans 1928 by French coachbuilder Charles Weymann finished second overall — losing only to a Bentley despite dropping top gear 90 minutes from the flag — the best Le Mans result by an American car until Ford's 1966 victory.

The line evolved through several engine designations, culminating in the SV-16 (single-cam, 16-valve) and the DV-32 (dual-overhead-cam, 32-valve, 156 hp) offered together in the early 1930s. The DV-32 was among the most advanced production engines in the world, but arrived just as the Depression gutted the luxury market. Stutz filed for bankruptcy in 1937 and was liquidated in 1939. The letter-series designations followed roughly the AA/BB models of 1926–1928, the M/MA/MB senior line of 1929, and then the SV-16 (1930–1935) and DV-32 (1931–1935); the series overlapped in production, so individual variant boundaries blur, but the broad 1926–1935 span is well established.