Anyone old enough to remember Airspeed Ambassadors starting up? Used to be LVPs for about 10 minutes afterwards!!
Oh my god HD, I do but you make me feel my age ! I saw one fire up one morning at Liverpool airport (Dan-Air used to do a Liverpool to Amsterdam run with them) exactly as you describe.
It was a general feature of radial engines, but some were worse than others. In a radial with all the cylinders in a star arrangement, it was not really possible to prevent some of the lubricating oil all around the con rods and crankshaft in the centre of the engine from slowly leaking down into the lower cylinders, especially with worn piston rings, whence it would be burnt off when the engine was started up, with the associated smoke from the burning oil.
Doesn't happen with a car engine as the cylinders are all above the oily parts.