Thomas Jay McCahill III (June 21, 1907 – May 10, 1975) was an automotive journalist, born the grandson of a wealthy attorney[1] in Larchmont, New York.
[2] He became a salesman for Marmon and in the mid-1930s operated dealerships in Manhattan and Palm Springs, featuring Rolls-Royce, Jaguar, and other high-line luxury cars.
[citation needed] During the war he wrote articles on a variety of subjects for magazines such as Popular Science, Reader's Digest and Mechanix Illustrated (M.I.).
Hitting on the idea that an auto-starved post-wartime public might be interested in articles on new cars, he sold the concept to Mechanix Illustrated in February 1946,[1] first reporting on his own 1946 Ford.
[citation needed] McCahill was a personal friend of Walter P. Chrysler[citation needed] and appreciated the handling and performance characteristics of Chrysler Corporation cars in the late 1950s and 1960s, which included many advanced engineering features such as front torsion-bar suspensions (combined with rear multi-leaf springs) for flatter cornering, powerful V8 engine options across the board and positive-shifting three-speed TorqueFlite automatic transmissions.
[citation needed] The 1957 Ford "cornered as flat as a mailman's feet" and the 1954 De Soto is "as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar and just as fast."
McCahill was in favor of lifting the Automobile Manufacturer's Association ban on factory backed stock car racing;[citation needed] although the ban was agreed upon by GM, Ford and Chrysler in June 1957, manufacturers continued under-the-table efforts to provide performance parts and engines to racing teams or performance-car enthusiasts.
[4] In response to Nader's book, McCahill tried to get a 1963 Corvair to flip, at one point sliding sideways into a street curb, but could not turn over the vehicle.
[5] In the 600 road tests he performed and reported on,[citation needed] his favorite cars were the 1953 Bentley Continental and the 1957–1962 Imperial, each model year of which he owned as his personal vehicles.
[citation needed] In 1950 he purchased a new Ford and proceeded to acquire the assistance of Andy Granatelli in "hopping it up" by switching to high-performance heads and manifolding.
He demanded that the U.S. stop accepting imports and, in lieu of war reparations, force England, Canada and France (where one could purchase an English or German car, but no U.S. makes) to accept the forced sale of hundreds of thousands of used U.S. cars, a plan which he claimed would increase the sale of new vehicles by more than six million annually over the following five years, thus significantly accelerating the U.S. economy.
McCahill had become Mechanix Illustrated‘s public face, and the industry quickly realized that his review could make or break a product instantly.
When he tested the 1948 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98 powered by a flat-head eight-cylinder engine of prewar design, he claimed that depressing the accelerator was like "Stepping on a wet sponge".
However, it was widely known that McCahill's report motivated GM into development of Oldsmobile's new overhead-valve, high-compression "Rocket V8" engine, which made its début the following year in the 1949 "98."
The Rocket V8 performed even better than in the bigger and heavier 98, thereby creating a whole new image for Olds and set the stage for similar designed V8 engines throughout Detroit over the next few years.
According to Canadian automotive historian Bill Vance, McCahill had lost a leg that became gangrenous after a thorn penetrated it during a duck hunt, forcing its amputation.