Hard not to be romantic about old engines. The demise of the L-series V8 would have been plotted on a Bentley spreadsheet for years - but you'd need a heart of stone not to hear Last Post playing when the confirmation finally came: Crewe will hand make no more 6.75-litre units, bringing down the curtain on a line of succession which stretches all the way back to the fifties. Sure, plenty about the V8 had changed in that time (see below) but very long-running engines are like royalty - they mark the times even as they adapt to suit them.
All good things must end though, and the L-series had finally reached the end of the viability road. Truthfully of course, had it not been sheltered by a venerable, low volume brand like Bentley, the V8 would have been retired years ago. The odd outlier notwithstanding, the era of the multi-decade engine production run is well behind us; laid low by the relentless march of technology and increasingly stringent efficiency requirements. Interesting engines these days become ubiquitous on cost grounds - and are then get quickly shuffled off for something smaller and less thirsty before you can say 'emissions'.
That makes this Six of the Best doubly wistful. Not only have all the engines on it now gone to the great scrapheap in the sky, there will be no four-, five- or six-decade replacements for subsequent generations to treat with reverential awe. This is it for the warhorses. Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come...
Ferrari Colombo V12 (1947 - 1988)
It's only right we start with Ferrari. Most automotive tall tales do. And the Colombo V12 is right there in the bowels of history. It powered the first car ever branded a Ferrari - the 125 S - as a 118hp 1.5-litre petrol motor, and retired a four-cam, wet sumped, fuel injected 4,943cc Grand Tourer-pusher in 1988. Not bad for an engine designed in the black shadow of the world's most destructive war.
Of course it was altered significantly in that period, but the V12 retained the name by which it was known internally: the Colombo engine. That's because it was designed by Gioachino Colombo, a former Alfa engineer. Like everything else about Ferrari in the forties, the tiny motor was built to race and by '49 had gained dual overhead camshafts and a two-stage supercharger to produce 280hp in Ferrari's contemporaneous F1 cars.
Truthfully though, its career in motorsport was short-lived; it was the 58.8mm stroke version (or multiple derivatives of it) that earned the V12 its reputation. By 1952 it was deployed as a 3.0-litre in the gorgeous Ferrari 250, cementing its place as the manufacturer's unit of choice for front-engine GT cars. Ferrari kept enlarging and evolving the engine throughout the sixties where it powered the 275, 330 and 365. It was finally retired in the 412i. Its designer died the same year.
Jaguar XK6 (1949 - 1992)
The Colombo was admirably long-lived, certainly - but because it had a limited life on the track, there were other engines which came to better define Ferrari. The XK6, on the other hand, is woven into Jaguar's origin story like Superman's cape. It powered the XK120, the world's fastest production car in 1948, and it powered the E-Type, the world's most beautiful car period. It was in the Mark 2 and it was in the XJ6. The D-Type had an XK6. Without it, Jaguar would not be Jaguar.
Had Sir William Lyons pulled the polished dual cam cover sword-like from a stone, it would hardly now be a surprise. Instead he and William (Bill, genius) Heynes and the other engineers conceived it at night time. During the Blitz. The XK was specifically intended to be a) high output and b) good looking. Imagine conceiving of such a thing when bombs are falling?
By the time the new straight-six was mounted in the XK120 it was 3.4-litres and developed 160hp. Later, in the XK150, with a straight-port cylinder head and three carburettors, it produced 250hp. The 220hp 3.8-litre variant made the Mark 2 justly famous. There was a smaller 2.4-litre version, too, and of course the 3.0-litre for racing. Finally in 1964 there was the 4.2-litre which, courtesy of Bosch fuel injection, served in Jaguar's saloons all the way up to the Series 3 XJ6. Six decades of service and easily among the finest things to ever emerge from a British factory.
Rolls-Royce-Bentley L-Series (1959 - 2020)
The L-Series longevity is all the more startling when you consider that it was still being built and fitted to cars at the beginning of this year. What else has survived from 1959? That was when the L-Series was introduced, replacing the straight-sixes and eights that had seen service with the Bentley and Royces of the fifties.
Nowadays, with the engine in very recent memory, it's hard to imagine a more perfect fit for two British luxury car brands than the 6,230cc V8. Effortlessly smooth, unerringly refined and blessed with bountiful torque, the L-Series was the ideal unit to power the world's finest saloons. It became the 6.75-litre for the early 1970s, nominally increasing power but crucially adding even more torque. Turbos gave it real vim, and from 1998 - with the engine design already more than 30 years old - Bentley took on sole development as the brands famously split.
The subsequent work over the past couple of decades has only broadened the appeal of the old stager. Reintroduced in the Arnage, then stuffed under the vast bonnets of the Brooklands and Azure, the 6.75 has provided imperious, imperceptible, immense performance in all settings. Fittingly, the engine has been perhaps best shown off in the most recent Mulsanne Speed; more powerful, more responsive and torquier than ever - an old dog taught savage and bewildering new tricks. Uniquely charming and titanically strong, the V8 suited contemporary Bentleys with no less panache than engines a fraction of its grand old age. RIP 6.75.
Rover V8 (1960 - 2006)
The Rover V8 was not pretty. But it earned its 'the'. Was there ever a more pleasing engine to pronounce? It sounded good, especially when said at a bar. It also conveyed power and brawn - exactly what the engine was known for. And yes, it began life as a Buick V8, powering hundreds of thousands of cars in the US, but over here it's known best for its Rover development and installations. Plus, well, literally dozens of others.
The Rover V8's success was in being light; aluminium construction meant it could be lobbed in the front of a Ginetta, MG or Morgan - bestowing huge performance on the unsuspecting sports car in the process - without spoiling the weight distribution. That also made the V8 an ideal fit for race cars (which it still is today), thundering its heart out in the front of Rover SD1s, Triumph TR8s and various TVRs.
Being a relatively simple pushrod engine helped the Rover V8's longevity, as did its mighty torque for use in Land Rovers. From its original 3.5-litre configuration the Rover V8 grew through 3.9, 4.0, 4.3, 4.6 and 5.0-litre forms (amongst others), culminating in the 4,997cc lump that saw such sterling service in the TVR Chimaera and Griffith, launched more than a quarter of a century after the first Rover P5B. Back when there really was no replacement for displacement, The Rover V8 was king - and it ruled for a very long time.
Ford Kent (1959 - 2002)
Every other engine on this list, with the possible exception of the one above, is part of engineering aristocracy. They were born with greatness in mind. The Ford Kent was not. There are several other smaller capacity petrol motors we might have chosen, but the inline-four introduced in 1959 is remarkable for its humble birthplace - under the bonnet of a Ford Anglia. An inauspicious starting place for a device which would eventually become one of the preeminent motorsport engines of the last fifty years.
It powered racers across the world, and helped dozens of fledgling drivers progress up the ladder as Formula Ford's control motor; drivers like Jenson Button, Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna all cut their teeth with Kent Crossflow power - rated at about 155hp. At one point in time, it was considered virtually impossible to have made it in motorsport without encountering the Kent.
That would be enough for legendary status on its own, but of course the unit was also the basis for the Lotus TwinCam, not to mention all of Cosworth's early engines, which went on to dominate Formula 2 and 3. Remarkably, despite production of Kent-lineage road engines ending with the Mk4 Fiesta in 2002, Ford Racing's Performance Parts department in the US brought the motor back in 2010 to satisfy historic motorsport demands. It lives on in various guises under the motorsport banner to this day.
Lamborghini V12 (1963 - 2011)
The 'youngest' engine on our list and the anthesis of the Ford Kent. Ferruccio Lamborghini was interested in one thing: power. And was famously forthright about his willingness to pay for it; especially if it meant getting one over on Enzo. Thus it was conceived from the start as a quad cam V12, and is said to have outputted 375hp at 9,000rpm on the test bed. Its designer claimed it was mechanically capable of 400hp at 11,000rpm, should Lamborghini care to fit it with a better fuel system. Can you imagine?
The manufacturer declined and so the V12 went into Lamborghini's first car, the 350GT in a more sedate 284hp state of tune. Then, steadily and predictably, it evolved from a 3.5 to 3.9 to 4.8 to 5.2 to 5.7 to 6.0 to 6.2 to finally 6.5-litre and powered everything from Countach to Diablo with one Ayrton Senna for good measure. It bowed out with the Murcielago in 2011, via the run-out LP 670-4 SuperVeloce.
Although capacity and performance grew over the years, the two banks of six-cylinders always remained set at 60 degrees - including those to make up the 3512 V12 that powered Aguri Suzuki's Lola F1 racer to a third place finish at the 1990 Japanese GP. Arguably its most legendary outing came in 1993 when it powered a modified McLaren MP4/8 for Senna on a test day. The Brazilian was said to be a fan of the powerplant, but team boss Ron Dennis opted for Peugeot V10 power for the following season. What might have been, eh?
Ferrari V12 pic: Patrick Ernzen © 2018 Courtesy of RM Sothebys
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