Thank Frankel it's Friday: The greatest road car engines ever

But then I realised that of course, the DFV is the greatest racing engine of all time. You can argue until you’re blue in the face over who’s the greatest driver and which is the greatest car. But engine? No contest. It was, in retrospect, a rubbish idea for a column; so I scrapped it.

In the road car arena, it is much less clear-cut. Here are what I think are some of the possible candidates:

1. 1903 Mercedes 60hp. This 9.3-litre monster was perhaps the first engine to combine proper power with unquestionable reliability, and it did so less than 20 years after the first car was built. In 1903 it much have seemed like witchcraft.

2. 1929 Bentley 6.5-litre. This was Bentley’s best engine, a motor so exquisitely engineered that a strip down report after a 24 race read, in total: ‘Nothing to report.’ Combined smoothness, torque, power and reliability like no other engine of its era.

3. 1932 Alfa straight-eight. There is no engine sound more easily identified than that of a supercharged, straight eight Alfa. Rich, melodious, slightly offbeat and diamond sharp, every time I hear one, usually in a Goodwood paddock, I have to stop what I’m doing and go and listen to it.

4. 1948 Jaguar straight-six. Given how affordable were the cars that used it, this was the most important high-performance engine of the 1950s, a motor so good it served in sports cars limousines, hearses and racing cars that won Le Mans five times. And it survived for over 40 years.

5. 1960 Ferrari 3-litre ‘Colombo’ V12. Actually, this engine was born in the 1940s and lived into the late 1960s, but it was probably never better when in 3-litre form and not just in racers like the GTO, but all Ferrari road cars too. Smooth, powerful and almost indestructible, much of the reputation that Ferrari has to this day was built on its shoulders.

6. 1963 Porsche flat-six. Goes without saying really. The original 911 engine survived for nearly 35 years and changed everything for Porsche. Funny to think it was originally intended to have valves actuated by pushrods which, if pursued, would have decimated its development potential.

7. 1971 Alfa Romeo flat-four. While every other small family car came with coarse, hoarse straight fours, Rudi Hruska’s seminal flat four not only gave the Alfasud its joyous, bubbling personality, it also kept its centre of gravity on the ground. A true diamond in the coal pit.

8. 1985 BMW ‘M’ straight-six. Started life in the M1 but came into its own in the first and second generation M5s, turning innocent enough executive saloons into the most exciting family cars of their time. In turbocharged race spec, it was good for 800bhp too…

9. 1994 McLaren-BMW V12. No car ever raised further or faster the bar of road car performance than the McLaren F1, and it did so powered by a bespoke 6.1-litre engine generating 627bhp, an unheard of output for a normally aspirated road car engine over 20 years ago. In all regards from torque provision to power delivery, it was flawless.

10. 2017 Bentley 6.75-litre V8. There wasn’t much like it when it was new in 1959 and there’s even less today. Its spec reads like something from the dark ages: max power at 4000rpm and less than 75bhp per litre despite twin turbos. If it were in the same tune as Mercedes’ 2-litre AMG engine it would have not 508bhp but nearly 1300bhp… It’s the torque you cannot argue against: over 1,000Nm at just 1,750rpm. Until you’ve driven one of these, you will not know how effortless an internal combustion engine can be.

But none of these is the greatest engine in the world. To me, that accolade belongs to the Chevrolet Small Block motor that started life in 1955, lived for 48 years and remains at least related to the V8s General Motors makes today. In its life over 100,000,000 were produced for everything from trucks to race cars. It got the American muscle car movement underway almost singlehanded and in its rumbling thunder surely encapsulated the sound of America more than any other. Best of all, you could be given the most dilapidated wreck of a car that was utter rubbish when it was new, but if it had a small block under the hood not only would you know it would get you to your destination, but that you’d enjoy the ride too.