16 carb V12 hot rod

That’s not a typo.

About 10 years ago,I reported on this car, built not far from me.

He used 16 motorcycle carbs on custom manifold.

It ran well when I saw it.

Rob

Impressive!!
But on the other hand… I thought that the benefit of multi carbs is that they are individual, i.e. each carb feeds each cylinder’s needs.
With this 16 carb setup it seems that they all feed the manifold together, not very different from having a single carb, more air flow maybe, but with the added complication of having to adjust and equalise 16 of them…
I wonder why he chose this and not 12 carbs directly to the intakes.

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one reason may be that this setup is much easier than adjusting 12 individual throttle bodies
(or he used 2 V8 manifold parts, so 16 was easier than 12)

but as you point out, the benefice is more esthetical than mecanical (form over the function)