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Written by Tom Ford
It"s a simple question that provokes plenty of debate: what"s the best engine on sale today? The beating heart of a vehicle, at least as important as the way a car looks or handles, the motivation can make or break the entire experience. Obviously performance engines have a more visceral connection - they"re designed to be emotional - but there"s plenty of innovative and technologically-advanced motors out there that measure their success by being entirely butlerish, just doing what they"re supposed to do for hundreds of thousands of miles. You could argue that the best" engine is one that does what it is designed to do most effectively. An engine that isn"t reliable loses points, and one that does 250k miles without an oil change must be pretty robust, but likely as dull as fat-free cake.The question, therefore, is a bit of a conversational hand grenade. The Dodge Demon"s 6.2-litre Hemi-headed V8 gets a big-boost, twin-screw IHI supercharger to deliver 840bhp and 770lb ft of torque (on 100-octane petrol), sounds like a thunderstorm trapped in a tin shed and is capable of pulling the Challenger"s front wheels off the ground at launch, but is it clever? Does it need to be? A Ferrari 488"s 3.9-litre bitiurbo V8 produces 661bhp (170bhp-per-litre) and is the current International Engine of the Year Performance car engine, but is it an engine that ticks all the boxes?A Tesla doesn"t have an engine" at all, but it still manages to produce acceleration figures that make supercar manufacturers wince - and the only noise it really makes is the sound of tortured tyres. Which is confusing and delightful in equal measure. And it gets more complicated: a BMW i8 has a three-cylinder turbo petrol engine allied to its electric motor set up, and thanks to some aural tuning sounds good, too. But it"s also fitted to a Mini, where it isn"t quite so exciting. Similarly the Honda NSX"s 3.5-litre turbocharged V6 is allied to a triplet of electric motors and produces awesome drivability, but it has a habit of sounding like a large dog coughing up a hairball.But little, clever engines can be magic, too. Ford"s 999cc three-cylinder turbo typically produces 123bhp and 148lb ft of torque, but it fits - quite literally - onto a sheet of A4 paper, and motivates much bigger cars than its displacement suggests it should, with grown up refinement thanks to clever flywheel and crank-pulley counterweighting. Similarly, PSA"s 1.2-litre offering is arguably the best of the small-capacity triples available - Paul Horrell (who knows a thing or two about engines), certainly thinks so. So there"s the satisfaction of engineering nouse, as well as chest-beating performance figures and apocalyptic engine notes.So the question stands - what does TG.com think is the best engine currently on sale?Here"s a few that the TG office think should be in with a shout as well as the one"s we"ve talked aboutBMW 1.5-litre 3-cyl diesel: 1 Series/2 Series/3 Series<br />Ferrari 3.9-litre biturbo V8: 488 GTB/Spider<br />Ferrari 6.3-litre V12 - F12, F12 TdF, LaFerrari<br />VW 1.5-litre TSI Evo - VW Golf<br />Mercedes AMG 4.0-litre Biturbo V8 - GT, GT S, C63, many more<br />Aston Martin 5.2-litre V12 biturbo - DB11<br />Porsche 4.0-litre flat-six - 911 R, 911 GT3, GT3RS<br />Lamborghini n/a 6.5-litre V12 - Aventador S<br />Audi/Lamborghini n/a 5.2-litre V10 - R8 V10/ Huracan<br />BMW 3.0-litre 6-cyl - M550d/X550d<br />Bugatti 8.0-litre W12 quad-turbo - Chiron
Date written: 4 Jul 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 8368
It"s a simple question that provokes plenty of debate: what"s the best engine on sale today? The beating heart of a vehicle, at least as important as the way a car looks or handles, the motivation can make or break the entire experience. Obviously performance engines have a more visceral connection - they"re designed to be emotional - but there"s plenty of innovative and technologically-advanced motors out there that measure their success by being entirely butlerish, just doing what they"re supposed to do for hundreds of thousands of miles. You could argue that the best" engine is one that does what it is designed to do most effectively. An engine that isn"t reliable loses points, and one that does 250k miles without an oil change must be pretty robust, but likely as dull as fat-free cake.The question, therefore, is a bit of a conversational hand grenade. The Dodge Demon"s 6.2-litre Hemi-headed V8 gets a big-boost, twin-screw IHI supercharger to deliver 840bhp and 770lb ft of torque (on 100-octane petrol), sounds like a thunderstorm trapped in a tin shed and is capable of pulling the Challenger"s front wheels off the ground at launch, but is it clever? Does it need to be? A Ferrari 488"s 3.9-litre bitiurbo V8 produces 661bhp (170bhp-per-litre) and is the current International Engine of the Year Performance car engine, but is it an engine that ticks all the boxes?A Tesla doesn"t have an engine" at all, but it still manages to produce acceleration figures that make supercar manufacturers wince - and the only noise it really makes is the sound of tortured tyres. Which is confusing and delightful in equal measure. And it gets more complicated: a BMW i8 has a three-cylinder turbo petrol engine allied to its electric motor set up, and thanks to some aural tuning sounds good, too. But it"s also fitted to a Mini, where it isn"t quite so exciting. Similarly the Honda NSX"s 3.5-litre turbocharged V6 is allied to a triplet of electric motors and produces awesome drivability, but it has a habit of sounding like a large dog coughing up a hairball.But little, clever engines can be magic, too. Ford"s 999cc three-cylinder turbo typically produces 123bhp and 148lb ft of torque, but it fits - quite literally - onto a sheet of A4 paper, and motivates much bigger cars than its displacement suggests it should, with grown up refinement thanks to clever flywheel and crank-pulley counterweighting. Similarly, PSA"s 1.2-litre offering is arguably the best of the small-capacity triples available - Paul Horrell (who knows a thing or two about engines), certainly thinks so. So there"s the satisfaction of engineering nouse, as well as chest-beating performance figures and apocalyptic engine notes.So the question stands - what does TG.com think is the best engine currently on sale?Here"s a few that the TG office think should be in with a shout as well as the one"s we"ve talked aboutBMW 1.5-litre 3-cyl diesel: 1 Series/2 Series/3 Series<br />Ferrari 3.9-litre biturbo V8: 488 GTB/Spider<br />Ferrari 6.3-litre V12 - F12, F12 TdF, LaFerrari<br />VW 1.5-litre TSI Evo - VW Golf<br />Mercedes AMG 4.0-litre Biturbo V8 - GT, GT S, C63, many more<br />Aston Martin 5.2-litre V12 biturbo - DB11<br />Porsche 4.0-litre flat-six - 911 R, 911 GT3, GT3RS<br />Lamborghini n/a 6.5-litre V12 - Aventador S<br />Audi/Lamborghini n/a 5.2-litre V10 - R8 V10/ Huracan<br />BMW 3.0-litre 6-cyl - M550d/X550d<br />Bugatti 8.0-litre W12 quad-turbo - Chiron
Date written: 4 Jul 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 8368
