SHIN'YO japanese suicide boat.

[Fernando Mendes]

SHIN'YO was a suicide japanese boat in WWII that had a Chevrolet 6 cylinder engine.

[coW52Dodge]

Chevy sixers weren't that bad that you'd want to kill yourself, were they???

[PatS....]

Seems as though they were

[greg g]

One time useage suits those babbit pounders just right.......

[MBF]

I've got the 53 Chevy my Dad purchased new 2 weeks before I was born. Drug it out of the barn the other day and got it running for the first time in about 10 yrs. Still has original rods and it isn't knocking! I rebuilt it in '69 w 95K on it and she still sounds good. Wonder where the Japs were getting these engines from?

[Don Coatney]

I've got the 53 Chevy my Dad purchased new 2 weeks before I was born. Drug it out of the barn the other day and got it running for the first time in about 10 yrs. Still has original rods and it isn't knocking! I rebuilt it in '69 w 95K on it and she still sounds good. Wonder where the Japs were getting these engines from?

I believe 1952 was the last year for the 216CI engine with babbot bearings for shiverlay. And the standard transmission cars were the only ones that got them then. The powerglide equipped cars all had the 235 CI engine with insert bearings in 1952. I know as my dad bought a new 1952 shiverlay with a standard transmission in 1953. He got a good deal as his car as it was a year end clearance sale. This was the only new car my dad ever bought.

[greg g]

Mr. Toyoda (after whom the compay is named, with a slight spelling change to make it easier for non Japanese to pronounce) visited Amereica in the 30's to observe American operations and products. The main product at the time was weaving looms. Like a lot of other things Japanese industry is good at copying and improving existing stuff is hogh on the list. A web site reviewing the history of Toyota has this entry:

Toyoda's car operations were placed in the hands of Kiichiro Toyoda, Sakichi Toyoda’s son; they started experimenting with two cylinder engines at first, but ended up copying the Chevrolet 65-horsepower straight-six, using the same chassis and gearbox with styling copied from the Chrysler Airflow. The first engine was produced in 1934 (the Type A), the first car and truck in 1935 (the Model A1 and G1, respectively), and its second car design in 1936 (the model AA). In 1937, Toyota Motor Company was split off.

From 1936 to 1943, only 1,7,57 cars were made – 1,404 sedans and 353 phaetons (model AB), but Toyoda found more success building trucks and busses. (Some of these early details are from http://www.geocities.com/toyotageek/) The Toyota KB, a 4x4 produced starting in 1941, was a two-ton truck similar to the prewar KC; it had a loading capacity of 1.5 tons and could run up to about 43 mph. The GB was based on the peacetime, 1.5 ton G1 truck, which in turn was based on the Model A1 cars. (From globalspec).

The first Toyoda truck was roughly a one-ton to one and a half-ton design, conventional in nature, using (after 1936) an overhead valve six-cylinder engine that appears to have been a clone of the Chevrolet engine of the time: indeed, a large number of parts were interchangeable, and Toyoda trucks captured in the war were serviced by the Allies with Chevrolet components. There was also a forty-horsepower four cylinder model, very similar to the six cylinder in design but rather underpowered for a truck with a full ton of capacity

[olddodgeguy]

Yeah, I thought I remembered the early Toyota 4x's having a Chevy copy for an engine. Thanks for looking that up. Mike

[Vintrader]

I think the first Chevrolet Truck to use a 235 was 1954? I have also had a number of Toyota FJ-40's and that stock F series six was a pretty good copy of the 235.

Dutch

[MBF]

Don-this '53 has the babbited rods-and its the original engine-the car has been in the family since new. 54 was the first year for the fully pressurized 235 in the std transmissions at least in the passenger car series. I'd do a swap because I like the pressurized system, but this one is staying all original. Mike