Aston Martin Deep-Sixes The Idea Of A Straight Six

The downsizing of engines has been sweeping the automotive industry like a Zamboni before a hockey game. And Aston Martin is hardly exempt. But despite rumors to the contrary, the British automaker isn’t prepared to use six-cylinder engines again.

The rumormill spooled up when Matt Becker – one of Aston’s top engineers – told journalists at the Geneva Motor Show recently that he could see slotting six-cylinder engines into future models. But speaking with Motoring at the launch of the new Vantage in Portugal, Becker clarified that the company had no such plans in place.

The engineer said that he tried out the new mild hybrid turbo six that Mercedes-AMG has slotted into the new CLS 53. As Motor1 points out, the engine produces roughly as much as the previous V8 Vantage S, in a much smaller package. Though impressed, Becker said “to be honest I don’t know whether the engine would fit” into any of Aston’s current models.

The British automaker has a partnership in place with Daimler that sees AMG helping Aston with powertrains and other technologies. The V8 in the new Vantage (and DB11) is sourced from AMG, while the V12 (though unique to Aston) is based on an AMG block as well. Both units are twin-turbocharged and smaller in displacement than Aston’s previous Ford-based, naturally aspirated engines.

Some of Aston’s most iconic models have employed six-cylinder engines, but the last was the DB7 nearly twenty years ago. That model launched in 1994 with a 3.2-liter inline six, but the option was discontinued in 1999 after the newer V12 version arrived. The only exception to the company’s exclusive use of V8 and V12 engines since was the Cygnet, which retained the 1.3-liter four from the Toyota iQ on which it was closely based. But that was an anomaly which Aston isn’t keen to revisit.