The downsizing trend has reached all walks of the automotive industry, as efficiency has become a main concern for all manufacturers regardless of product specifics. City cars’ engines are now thought of as big, if they pass the one liter mark, and outdated if they don’t have a turbo, while the massive power plants used to lug the top-spec variants of big luxury barges around are also shrinking fast, though here, image is everything.
That’s why the Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG does not really have a 6.3-liter V8 engine. In fact, it’s not even the 6.2-liter naturally aspirated unit that was used previously – it’s a 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8. However, this unit may soon give way to an even smaller one, which Carsales thinks could be created by welding together two 2.0-liter four-pot motors found in the A-Class hot hatch to create a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8.
If this turns out to be more than a hunch, will they be keeping the S63 name?
Now, keep in mind that the 5.5-liter V8, code-named M157, has been in use since 2011, and used throughout the range of AMG models that includes the CL, SL, CLS, S-Class, E-Class, ML, GL and G-Klasse. It’s a relatively new unit too, that at 577 hp, could never be called down on power, so how could this suggested 4.0-liter unit match it? The report says that one of the reasons why a new unit is needed is the fact that trying to extract more power out of the M157 would mean a loss of reliability.
And thus, if they do decide to use the smaller V8 for the S63(-equivalent?) in the coming years, there is a very high likelihood that it could be given an extra boost by electricity – this is something that we have heard mentioned before, and like pretty much all of the rumors we post, this one’s very plausible as well.
By Andrei Nedelea
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