The greatest road car engines ever made

The article compiles a list of 50 road-car engines it calls among the greatest, arguing that “greatest” can mean size, power, relevance, or impact, and that candidates typically either sold in huge numbers or proved influential. It reviews engines in chronological order, starting with the Ford flathead V8 from 1932, which helped family cars reach 60 mph and remained in Ford production until 1954, with later use in Simca military trucks into the 1990s. It then covers the Volkswagen flat-four from 1936, tracing displacement growth from 1,131cc to 1,584cc and noting applications including the Type 2 and Transporter, plus a basis for the Porsche 356. Other selections highlighted include Ferrari’s Colombo V12 debuting in 1947, Citroën’s air-cooled flat-twin evolving up to 602cc, and Jaguar’s XK straight-six from 1948, later used across multiple models. The piece also begins its entry for the BMC A-Series, noting it entered production in 1951, but the excerpt ends before details continue.