Ford’s 1934 V8-powered Deluxe wasn’t built to be a getaway car, but it became one of the most famous ones in American history when Clyde Barrow stole an identical model weeks before his death in a police ambush. With 85 horsepower and a top speed of 65 mph, it was fast enough to outrun the law — a reputation Ford never asked for. Here’s the story behind the car and the engine that made it possible.
The 1934 Ford V8 has been tweaked again and now puts out 85 hp (63 kW). There are 14 body style options, but the Tutor is the most popular, while the three window coupe has been dropped from the roster this year. The top of the line DeLuxe sports pin striping, twin chrome horns and the interior is more upscale with wood grain accents. A stolen V8 Ford will go down in history as the vehicle that Bonnie and Clyde met their demise at a police ambush in Louisiana, in May of 1934.
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In the spring of 1934, a stolen Ford sedan became one of the most infamous getaway cars in American history — not because it was flashy, but because it was fast enough to outrun the police cars chasing it. Ford’s new flathead V8 had only been on the market a couple of years, and it was already changing what criminals and law-abiding buyers alike expected from an affordable car. It’s one of the stranger footnotes in early automotive history: Ford never intended the car for outrunning the law — quite the opposite — but that’s exactly the reputation it earned. One outlaw was so impressed he wrote a fan letter to Henry Ford himself, weeks before it all ended in a police ambush. What made this unassuming Ford fast enough to earn that kind of reputation?
The Depression-Era Car Fast Enough to Outrun the Law
The 1934 Ford Deluxe came equipped with a 221 cubic-inch L-head V8 producing 85 horsepower at 3,800 rpm and 130 lb-ft of torque, paired with a three-speed manual transmission and rear-wheel drive. That output doesn’t sound like much today, but in 1934, putting a V8 in an affordable mass-market car was still a novelty — V8 power had previously been reserved for expensive luxury cars and sports models. With a top speed of around 65 mph, the Deluxe could genuinely outrun most contemporary police vehicles, which mattered enormously to a certain kind of customer during the Depression. For a company trying to sell affordable performance to everyday families, that reputation was as much a headache as a marketing win.
A Fan Letter From the Wrong Kind of Customer
That certain kind of customer included Clyde Barrow, who stole a 1934 Ford Model 40B Fordor Deluxe sedan in May of 1934 — the same model and body style pictured here. Weeks earlier, Barrow had reportedly written to Henry Ford praising the V8’s speed and reliability for exactly the purpose he was using it for. The irony wasn’t lost on Ford, whose advertising had spent two years selling the V8 as a family car, not a getaway vehicle. Bonnie and Clyde were killed in that stolen Ford weeks later in a police ambush in Louisiana, cementing the car’s dark historical footnote — a strange legacy for a model Ford designed simply to be fast, stylish, and affordable for ordinary families.
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