Urban legends

America's first affordable V8-powered car was an automobile introduced in 1932 by the Ford Motor Company, one which quickly grew tremendously popular and received effusive praise from motorists.

Of those enthusiastic drivers, none was more famous at the time than the purported writer of this April 10, 1934 letter:

Henry Ford
Detroit, Mich.
Dear Sir,
While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned, and even if my business hasent been strickly legal it don't hurt enything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.
Yours truly
Clyde Champion Barrow

The authorship of this laudatory missive is still a subject of controversy. Although the item was date-stamped as having been received on April 13, 1934 by the Ford Motor Company and the original is kept on display at the Henry Ford Museum, the handwriting does not appear to match that of a November 12, 1931 letter by Clyde Barrow to his mother. (Indeed, Bonnie Parker's handwriting is a much better match.)
The high quality and speed of Ford Motor Company automobiles extolled in these gangsters' letters did not enable them to survive much longer, however. Clyde Barrow (with his partner in crime, Bonnie Parker) was killed in a firestorm of bullets from a police ambush in Louisiana just six weeks after his letter to Ford. Clyde Barrow provided a fitting ending by dying at the wheel of his purloined Ford V8.