Currently, the Brazilian market is accustomed to low-displacement turbo engines, such as the 1.0 three-cylinder turbo. In the past, a 2.0 engine was considered large, and larger engines, with six cylinders, were seen as a luxury. In the past, having voluminous engines meant power and high performance, referring to units with more than 5 or 6 liters, such as the large American V8s.
Below, we recall the five largest engines ever used in passenger vehicles.
The largest street engine is not American
The largest engine ever used in a street car comes from France, specifically in the Bugatti Type 41 Royale, launched in 1927. This vehicle is notable in several aspects. Its engine is an inline 8-cylinder with 12.8 liters of displacement, comparable to current heavy-duty truck engines. This powerplant featured overhead camshafts and three valves per cylinder, generating 300 hp.
The Royale was the most luxurious model from Bugatti, featuring a wheelbase of 4.30 meters and a width of 2.1 meters; its length varied depending on the bodywork and exceeded 6 meters. Its dry weight of 3,175 kg complemented the hood ornament, which represented an elephant resting on its hind legs.
After the oil crisis in the 1970s, American manufacturers began adopting smaller engines. The Dodge Viper returned with large displacement units when introduced in 1992. Its first V10 version had 8.0 liters, but in the second phase of the second generation, it increased to 8.4 liters. This configuration used variable valve timing and produced 604 hp. In the third and final generation, the Dodge Viper's V10 was again updated, reaching 654 hp, while tuners can extract over 1,000 hp from it without compromising reliability.
Historically, Bugatti focused on creating agile cars with smaller engines, such as the old Type 51. However, after being acquired by Volkswagen, the brand began incorporating large engines, following the lineage of the Royale. The Veyron and Chiron shared an 8.0-liter W16. The current company model, the Tourbillon, uses an 8.4-liter naturally aspirated V16 developed by Cosworth. This is the largest European engine of the modern era, producing 1,000 hp, and potentially reaching 1,800 hp with the support of the hybrid system. It was placed below the Dodge Viper due to its exact displacement difference: 8,355 cm³ versus 8,382 cm³ of the American V10.
Other large-capacity engines
Cadillac planned to launch a V12 engine for its automobiles in the late 1960s but abandoned the project, opting instead for a larger V8. This unit, designated Series 472, was launched in 1968 with 7.7 liters. However, it enters this list with the 1970 version presented in the Eldorado, which had 8.2 liters. In the United States, the unit of measurement used was cubic inches, and the new Cadillac V8 had 500 of them, representing the largest displacement of its time. In 1970, the declared power was 405 hp, but these were raw figures. In subsequent years, the oil crisis led this V8 to use a reduced compression ratio until it was discontinued in 1976, at which point it delivered only 192 hp of net power and 50 kgfm of torque, a force comparable to that of the Toyota Hilux 2.8 turbodiesel.
The large-block V8 engines from American manufacturers continued production during the 1980s and 1990s, intended for large pickup trucks and SUVs. Ford offered its 7.5 liters, while Chevrolet used a 7.4 liters. In the early 2000s, technology allowed for more power from smaller engines, but Chevrolet followed the opposite trend with the Vortec 8100. This 8.1-liter V8 engine was the last version of the Big Block launched in 1958 and was applied to the Suburban 2500 SUV, the Silverado 2500 and 3500 versions, and the Kodiak truck. The power of this engine ranged between 213 hp and 345 hp, depending on the application, and the torque was 62.9 kgfm in the most powerful configurations. This V8 remained in use until 2009, the year the Topkick truck was discontinued. Currently, GM offers a more compact 6.6 liters derived from the Small Block, with 407 hp and 64 kgfm in its most robust models.