The most legendary engines ever built. The ones that changed everything. Welcome to the Engine’s Syndicate.
Maserati cooked its own engine, regulations took the heat out Some engines explain themselves. Others hit you. The Nettuno does the first better than almost anything else alive. The second — no. And that’s exactly what you need to know before someone sells it to you as the future of Maserati. Because the future is … Read more
Ford Boss 302 vs Boss 429: Ford Built Two Race Engines for Two Different Wars. And Won Both. In 1969, Ford presented the world with two of the most radical engines it had ever installed in a road car. Both carried the “Boss” name. Both lived in the Mustang. Both existed for reasons that had … Read more
The 428 Cobra Jet: The Engine Ford Invented Because of a Rebel Dealer Some engines are born in high-tech engineering labs. Some are the result of years of strategic planning and multi-million dollar budgets. And then there are engines born because a dealer in Rhode Island got tired of watching his Mustangs lose at stoplights … Read more
The Subaru Boxer Engine: Not Too Reliable, But Tremendously Effective Some engines earn your respect through their reliability. Some earn it through their performance. And then there’s the Subaru boxer, which earns your respect despite everything, because what it does well, it does so extraordinarily well that you forgive everything else. Subaru’s horizontally-opposed engine — … Read more
PSA XUD: The Indestructible Atmospheric Diesel That Moved an Entire Continent If any engine deserves the title “workhorse of Europe,” it’s the PSA XUD. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t powerful. It had no turbo, no sophisticated electronic injection, nothing that could be considered remotely exciting. But it had something worth more than all of that … Read more
Ferrari’s Flat V12 Engines: Why They Howl and Why Nothing Else Sounds the Same Some sounds are burned into memory forever. The rumble of an American V8 at idle. The shriek of a Japanese four-cylinder at 9,000 rpm. But no mechanical sound in automotive history comes close to the supernatural howl of a Ferrari horizontally-opposed … Read more
The BMW M57D30: The Diesel That Silenced the Sceptics In a world where “diesel” and “excitement” rarely share a sentence, BMW built an engine that defied every prejudice. The M57D30, the inline-six turbodiesel that powered the E46 330d among other applications, didn’t just prove that a diesel could be refined and powerful. It proved that … Read more
The Toyota 2JZ-GTE: The Legend That Earned Its Throne on Boost There are good engines. There are reliable engines. There are powerful engines. And then there’s the 2JZ-GTE. The engine that turned the Toyota Supra into an immortal icon, humiliated supercars on workshop budgets, and two decades later remains the absolute reference when discussing tuneable … Read more
The BMW M50B25: The Cast Iron Engine That Refused to Die When enthusiasts talk about indestructible engines, the Toyota 2JZ dominates the conversation. But in Munich, BMW was building something equally special: an inline-six with a cast iron block that would become the foundation for one of the most reliable tuning platforms ever created. The … Read more
COSWORTH: THE HISTORY Cosworth: The Company That Powered Half the World in Competition In competitive motorsport, there exists a name that appears on more winning cars, more championships, and more victory stories than any independent engine manufacturer in history. It’s not Ferrari. It’s not Mercedes. It’s not Honda. It’s Cosworth. A company founded in a … Read more
Ford Coyote 5.0: The Detroit Roar Nobody Saw Coming There was once a Ford Mustang with a 4.6-liter V8 that produced 300 horsepower. It was a decent, respectable car that did its job well. But in the high-performance ecosystem of the late 2000s, 300 horsepower was no longer enough to make the kind of impression … Read more
The Small Block Chevy: The Most Produced Engine in History In 1955, Chevrolet introduced an engine nobody knew would last 50 years. A 265 cubic inch V8, compact by the standards of the era, designed by a team led by Ed Cole with the premise that lightness and power didn’t have to be opposing concepts. … Read more
