The most legendary engines ever built. The ones that changed everything. Welcome to the Engine’s Syndicate.
Porsche W18: the engine patented amid an electric crisis Let’s do an exercise together. Picture the following situation. You’re a Porsche AG executive in October 2025. Your group’s full-year operating profit has just collapsed 93%, from €5.640 billion to €413 million (or 98% if you include the €4.7 billion writedowns from abandoning parts of the … Read more
Doble Steam Motors: the car that nearly killed petrol Sit down. I’m going to tell you this one workshop-bench style, because the story is worth telling slowly. Electric? No. Petrol? No either. It’s a steam car. And the company that built it is called Doble Steam Motors. I’ve just typed those numbers and I’m still … Read more
BMW M Ignite: the pre-chamber saving the S58 from Euro 7 Picture a BMW M3 Competition rolling down a B-road in the Yorkshire Dales next Friday. Foot down, climbing through the curves. Under the bonnet, the S58 engine is doing exactly what it’s been doing for years: three litres, six cylinders in line, twin-turbo, 530 … Read more
Achates Power: the engine Aramco has been funding for 8 years This one I’ll tell you backwards, because the conclusion is stronger than the opening. When we published the Aramco DHE article a few weeks ago, we framed it as a new move. A brilliant move, but new. Aramco pulls a hybrid-purpose petrol engine out … Read more
Bosch, MAHLE and AVL: Europe hasn’t quit combustion Across five articles, NEC has been telling you how the combustion engine game is being played in 2026. If you’ve reached this one, you probably hold a simple idea in your head: Europe has surrendered. The Chinese push ahead, the Japanese hold the line, the Saudis manoeuvre … Read more
Perkins: The British Diesel That Ran the World and Never Asked for Credit Every country has its unsung industrial heroes — the bits of engineering that did the heavy lifting while the glamorous names took the applause. Britain gave the world Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin, the marques that end up on bedroom posters and auction … Read more
Mazda Iconic SP: the last romantic still betting on the engine Across four articles, NEC has been telling you how the combustion engine game is being played in 2026. We’ve explained how Aramco designs cheap engines to keep petrol alive. We’ve explained how Horse Powertrain quietly assembles the planet’s largest combustion-engine supplier. We’ve explained how … Read more
Toyota GRMN Corolla: an engine born in a hydrogen race While Europe shuts engine plants and the Chinese exploit the gap to build petrol engines with Formula 1-grade thermal efficiency, Toyota has been quietly doing something nobody else dared try. Something almost nobody has reported seriously. Something that landed, two days ago, in a road … Read more
Honda did it, Ferrari just patented it Quick question for you. Sit down with a coffee. Picture a three-litre, six-cylinder inline, non-circular pistons in oval form, eight valves per cylinder, two spark plugs per cylinder, two connecting rods per piston, redline at 15,000 rpm. Why does that engine not exist in any car anywhere on … Read more
Triflux: the Lancia engine with the strangest cylinder head ever bolted to a block Quick test. If I asked you to name the first car ever to use a properly sequential twin-turbocharger system — the kind where a small turbo spools up at low revs and a bigger one kicks in higher up — what … Read more
Light Speed Transmission (LST): the gearbox that doesn’t shift, it teleports Ask any engineer at Porsche, Ferrari or McLaren what the fastest-shifting gearbox is, and for twenty years the answer was settled: the dual-clutch. The DSG, the PDK, the lot. While you’re in third, the box already has fourth loaded up on the second clutch, … Read more
Freevalve: the camless engine, told properly Let’s get something out of the way before we go any further, because nearly every English-language piece on this engine starts with the same lie. Koenigsegg did not invent the camless engine. They are not the first to try it. The idea of binning the camshaft and operating valves … Read more
