Years ago I asked an old mechanic what was the reason for the V-12 and V-16's. Power? Nope. According to him it was smoothness.

Back in the 30's spark plugs just did not last more than than 8,000 miles if even that much. If a plug stopped firing and you had a four you could really feel the engine shake. If you had a six not so much and if you had an eight cylinder you could feel it but it was not that bad.

However, if you had a v-12 you could not feel it at all since you had 11 other cylinders firing. With a v-16 the smoothness of the engine was almost perfect, but the pistons were starting to get rather small which led to problems of its' own.

All in all it is amazing that Cord could get so much right when all he had to work stuff out with was a slide-rule. I guess they made up for a lack of modern tech with good old craftsmanship.