If you ask yourself what is your favorite car, the answer surely will consist of something with at least six cylinders, at least 2,500cc and preferably around 300-400 bhp. And if you are the sort of person that gets overly excited by the sound of booting a PC, then when asked the same question you would most certainly think about V-tecs, twin turbos, AWDs, and maybe even the VVTL-i Toyota engines. All of these cars have in common are engines different from the masses.
If we take a closer look at any of these engines and compare it to an ordinary one we would immediately hear the most noticeable difference between the two. The sound. The nice melody coming from a silky-smooth Japanese V6, the wrathful roar that comes from an American V8, the rev-happy scream of a V-tec engine, the irritated symphony of six pistons arranged in one line or the husky voice of a five cylinder engine can`t be compared to the dull hum of an ordinary four pot.
The introduction of the new Euro 5 standards in 2012 will affect mostly the hot hatches. The engines deserving an automotive engineering award in these cars will be torn out and will be replaced by economical, soulless and ordinary ones. The splendid five cylinder lump, reminiscent of the iconic Audi Quattro, in the Ford Focus ST will be replaced by a EcoBoost one, showing that Ford doesn`t want to be different from the TFSI engines of the VAG group. Honda have been forced to cease the production of their rev-tastic V-tec engine in the Civic Type-R, because a naturally aspirating engine with such power doesn’t meet the standards of the European Inquisition. Honda have promised to make a new engine for the new Type-R and according to rumors it is going to be a turbocharged one. Alfa-Romeo will have to scrap their charismatic and full of passion engines and replace them with Fiats` MultiAir ones.
The only people who continue to delight us with pleasant sounds and interesting engines are the boys at the STI division of Subaru and, surprisingly, Audi with their RS3, hiding under the bonnet a nostalgic five-cylinder engine with 340 bhp. All this is very nice but the production of cars with such engines makes them incredibly expensive. Any of these cars costs over fifty thousand euros.
But not all hope is lost! If many of the hot hatches will lose their character, the introduction of forced induction to normal engines gives more freedom to companies dealing with chip tuning for example. Pretty soon we will hear about a Ford Focus 1.6 EcoBoost tuned to 200bhp only with a slight change in the turbo boost.
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