Ferrari’s 3.9-liter Turbochargerd V8 Wins Engine Of The Year Award

If you want to buy the car equipped with the best engine of the year, you’ll have to dig deep into your pockets this time.

The “International Engine of the Year” is an annual competition which brings together a panel of motoring journalists, from around the world, to judge and award the automotive industry’s best internal combustion engines.

Using “subjective driving impressions and technical knowledge”, a panel composed of 63 journalists from 30 countries determine a winner in each category, and an overall victor.

In the past seven years, the competition was won by four sub 1.5-litre powerplants (including VW’s 1.4-litre TSI, Fiat’s 875cc TwinAir, Ford’s three-cylinder EcoBoost and BMW’s 1.5-litre three-pot), but this time, everybody agreed that Ferrari’s 3.9-litre, twin-turbocharged V8 unit was the best.

The powerplant – which motivates the 488 GTB, 488 Spider and, with a different displacement, the California T – is Ferrari’s return to twin-turbo technology and an advancement in force induction, as Graham Johnson, co-chairman, International Engine of the Year Awards puts it:

“It’s a giant leap forward for turbocharged engines in terms of efficiency, performance and flexibility. It truly is the best engine in production today and will forever be remembered as one of the all-time greats.”

Ferrari also won the “above 4-litre category”, with its 780 PS 6.2-litre V12 found on the F12 tdf.