These have ranged from the long-forgotten Mazda MX-3 (Eunos Presso in Japan), a small early-1990s 1.5-litre coupe with the most compact V6 engine ever made, through to the Jaguar XJ220, which used a modified 3.5-litre V64V V6 turbo (in place of the prototype’s V12), originally developed by Rover for use in its MG Metro 6R4 Group B rally weapon. In fact, some modern V6 engines are more powerful than V8 engines.
Join the GRRC Fellowship to access year-round exclusive videos, live streaming from events and more. 553452, By clicking submit you are accepting the terms of Goodwood’s, The six best V6 engines of all time – Axon's Automotive Anorak, Alfa Romeo has had a history of producing great motor cars, Why the Brussels Motor Show isn’t dead – Axon’s Automotive Anorak, Axon's Automotive Anorak: Attack of the vans, GRR Garage: Nissan X‑Trail – The road home via Reims, Axon's Automotive Anorak: Brussels, a motor show that works, Message from The Duke of Richmond and Gordon. Giulio Alfieri, set about designing a fresh V6 motor from scratch, using the existing tooling of its Indy V8.
All of the GT-R’s V6 engines are hand built by just four dedicated mechanics, known as ‘Takumi Craftsmens’, based on a special assembly line at Nissan's Yokohama plant, with their names set into a badge and mounted on every GT-R V6 motor. The Jag's V6 is also impressive, making our list of the best sounding V6 engines of all time. Being based on a V8 left the SM with a 90-degree vee-angle; far from the ideal 60-degree that V6 motors favour. Giuseppe Busso, the engine’s creator, passed away within couple of days of the last Alfa V6 engine being made. This article was written by the It Still Works team, copy edited and fact checked through a multi-point auditing system, in efforts to ensure our readers only receive the best information. V6 engines have had a rep for being a bit dull and lacking personality, but they are now enjoying something of a renaissance with some amazing new offerings on the market. The Giulia is the most powerful car in its segment and has one of our favorite V6 engines on the market today. 15 Best: 1979-2005 Alfa Romeo Busso Sharing an uncommon 90-degree angle like the SM’s Maserati V8-derived V6 (Citroën being taken over by Peugeot in 1974, after the creation of the SM’s V6), the PRV motor first saw use in the autumn of 1974 in the new Volvo 264 saloon, plus the facelifted Pininfarina-built Peugeot 504 Coupe and Cabriolet 2.7-litre, 138PS, V6 models. The M3's inline-six is very powerful, but lacks the amazing sound of our fourth choice, the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio. Even way back in 2014, an earlier-specification 553PS R35 GT-R tackled the Hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard, setting a quick time of 49.27 seconds, making it the fastest-ever road-legal production vehicle up the Goodwood hillclimb at the time. The VR38 was one of the first engines to use an ultra-thin plasma lining on the cylinder walls in place of a traditional steel liner.
Keen to uphold France’s once-proud position as a maker of truly prestigious cars, Citroën – that most French of vehicle makes – felt honour-bound to plug the gaping hole left by Facel-Vega and its predecessors with a revolutionary range-topping model positioned above its outstanding DS. V6 motors remained a key part of Lancia’s engine option family for many decades to follow, with other performance car makers inevitably trailing Lancia’s lead and developing V6 motors and models of their own over the years. The EcoBoost V6 is offered in 2.7-, 3.0- and 3.5-litre guises, with the latter used in the current Ford GT supercar, producing 669PS.
On a brighter note, here are six of the very best other V6 motors that have graced the tarmac over the past 70 years since Lancia first introduced the engine format. Honda's 3.5L V6 produces 271 horsepower and 254 foot-pounds of torque. effectively killed-off by punitive local vehicle taxes post-war, France’s prestige motoring honours were briefly upheld by Facel-Vega, until this Parisian marque also succumbed to growing commercial pressures in the early-1960s. PRV use increased for 1976 with introduction of Renault’s Alpine A310 V6 – which replaced that model’s previous four-cylinder Renault 16 powerplant – plus the laughable chop-top Volvo 262C coupe. Acura is Honda's luxury brand.
A full day of 'Revival Greats: The Greatest Races' straight from our stream... A full day of 'Revival Greats: The Greatest Drives' straight from our stream... Stay in the know with our newsletters that contain all the latest news, stories and event information. The supercharged V8 ZL1 may still be the ultimate Camaro, but the V6 model finally has performance that doesn't make you embarrassed that you "only" bought the V6. In this form, Ferrari’s Dino V6 saw extensive (and successful) rallying action in the dart-like Lancia Stratos. Enthusiasts love a big V8 engine, but it's time for the V6 to shine.
Registered in England No. Closer to home in Dagenham, Ford UK also produced its own ‘Essex’ V6 for use in top-line Capri, Granada and Transit derivatives, with this engine also found in some specialist sporting British machinery like the TVR Tasmin/280i and S, the Reliant Scimitar GTE/GTC and the retro Panther Kallister. Of the very many V6 engines built over the past 70 years, other units of note in this configuration have included the original (and current) Honda/Acura NSX motor, the 3.0-litre 24-valve engine shoe-horned into the middle of the wild Renault Clio V6, plus VAG’s VR6 engine, which was generally acclaimed, although not by CAR magazine when it famously condemned the VR6 as a useless and unreliable ‘lemon’, following its long-term ownership assessment of a temperamental VR6-powered Volkswagen Golf that it ran. This EcoBoost V6 has also been used in the performance Ford Taurus SHO, plus the F-150 Raptor twin-turbo pick-up truck, as well as the Ford Expedition and luxury Lincoln Navigator SUV models. Ford’s six-cylinder EcoBoost (D35) is one of the finest V6 engines available today. The 3.5L V6 produces 249 foot-pounds of torque. However, the new Chevy Camaro finally has a great sounding V6 engine with amazing performance. To submit your questions or ideas, or to simply learn more about It Still Works, contact us. Impressive stuff. During the Aurelia’s eight-year production run, the capacity of its all-alloy pushrod V6 (with a hemispherical combustion chamber and inline valves) grew from its initial 76PS, 1.8-litre motor, through to a more torquey 113PS in its final 2.5-litre incarnation of 1957.
Inspired by the success of the Lancia Aurelia V6 engine in local Italian competition, in the mid-‘50s Enzo Ferrari’s son Alfredo (nicknamed Dino) suggested the development of an in-house V6 to his father for use in Formula 2 racing. These include its wonderous pre-war Jano-developed 6C and 8C in-line motors, the celebrated Twin Cam that enjoyed a 40-year production run from 1954, plus the lively Boxer units that first found fame in the game-changing Alfasud of 1971. Jointly funded and developed by the Franco-Swedish trio, the V6 was manufactured by ‘Française de Mécanique’ for PRV in Douvrin, Northern France, with Volvo joining the Peugeot/Renault combo of 1969 a little later in 1971. With the 1950 debut of its advanced new Aurelia – initially in four-door Berlina guise only, but soon joined by the now-legendary Pininfarina GT Coupe and Spider – Lancia launched the first mass-produced V6 motor ever seen.
The V6 engine may finally be coming into its own. Maserati’s Chief Engineer, Ing. It produces between 288 and 304 horsepower, depending on which vehicle it comes in. Originally planned to use a triple-rotor Wankel engine, Citroën soon altered its Projet S to adopt a suitable V6 motor instead, something the French car maker lacked at the time. Although an outstanding engine with a 26-year production run, the ‘Busso’ V6 didn’t have the most auspicious home as its starting point, with the disappointing and out-classed range-topping Alfa 6 saloon being the first recipient of this fine motor. With the respected French ‘Grande Marques’ (Bugatti, Delahaye, Delage, Talbot-Lago, Salmson, etc.) On a brighter note, here are six of the very best other V6 motors that have graced the tarmac over the past 70 years since Lancia first introduced the engine format. This engine produces a whopping 434 hp in the Panamera 4S and 456 hp in the Panamera 4 hybrid. This 3.0-liter supercharged V6 is found in several Jaguar and Land Rover models and produces up to 380 hp. One particular case is Ford's 4.6L V8, which comes in the Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car, among other vehicles. The 3.5L V6 produces 268 horsepower and 248 foot-pounds of torque. In its ultimate GT-R50 form, with revised coachwork by Ital Design, Nissan’s phenomenal V6 develops a massive 721PS, enabling this sizeable coupe to storm from 0-60mph (0-97km/h) in just 2.4 seconds, with a top speed exceeding 205mph (330km/h). Dino tragically fell ill with muscular dystrophy shorty afterwards, but ahead of his untimely death in June 1956, aged just 24, he was able to discuss the technical aspects of a possible Ferrari V6 motor with engineer Vittorio Jano, the originator of the Lancia V6 engine. The Nissan 370Z uses an enlarged version of the 3.5L V6 (3.7L). Today the coveted Giulia and Stelvio Quadrifoglio models use a Ferrari-derived 60-degree V6. This 3.6-liter V6 produces 335 hp and is detuned to produce 310 hp in the new Buick Regal GS. The Mustang receives the lower-power 4.0L V6 for base models, with an optional V8. GM uses the 3.6L V6 in a number of its automobiles, including the Chevrolet Camaro, Buick Enclave, Buick Lucerne and Chevrolet Traverse. A mid-life refresh retains the Panamera's competitive edge. Over in its ‘home’ American market, Ford has also offered V6 engines in iconic blue oval models such as the 1980s Mustang III and Bronco SUV. The new Aurelia’s game-changing 60-degree V6 engine was developed under the direction of gifted Italian engineer Vittorio Jano and his colleague Francesco de Virgilio between 1943 and 1948, created as a response to the occasional vibration problems Lancia had experienced with its smaller V4 unit. In Europe, for example, during the 1960s-80s, Ford’s Cologne-based factory produced V6 motors for some of its more powerful German-built Capri, Sierra, Granada, Scorpio and Taunus 20M models. Following an impressive lineage of high-performance Skyline GT-R saloons and coupes, in 2007 Nissan introduced the current R35-generation GT-R, a devastingly rapid machine.
This engine makes 224 horsepower, which is lower than the amount produced by some of the high-performance V6 engines. Despite its high horsepower rating of 263, it's not found in the Ford Mustang.
V6 muscle cars have always been a bit of a disappointment compared to their V8 counterparts. It also comes with the Mazda CX-9. To work with Citroën’s favoured front-wheel-drive layout, this new V6 needed to be compact and light. The most powerful Panamera models still use turbocharged V8 engines, but Porsche has shown that a V6 can offer incredible performance and impressive hybrid fuel economy. At the standout Geneva Motor Show of March 1975, the top-line Volvo and refreshed 504s were joined by a pair of important all-new PRV-powered executive models, the Peugeot 604 and Renault 30. When Mercedes first announced its 43 AMG Sport line, we were among the skeptics.
Using the advanced hydrolastic DS as its base, Citroën developed an ambitious and expensive ‘Projet S’ four-seater GT coupe to top its range, but lacked a suitable engine to power such a machine.