The car enthusiast game is often so tribal it can make Senate debates look cordial. Though we’re all united by a love for cars, and many of us appreciate all kinds of cars built decades apart on different continents where they were designed to do different jobs, we’ve all got our favorites.
You might have a favorite era or body style of car, or maybe you couldn’t imagine ever owning anything that wasn’t build by Volkswagen or having all-wheel drive. Or maybe your predilections extend to the under bonnet hardware.
It’s an unusual car nut that doesn’t get a kick out of driving a car with more power than is strictly necessary, but what’s your preferred configuration for a powerful engine?
It’s hard to argue with the punch of a turbocharged motor, particularly when it comes to extracting extra power out of an existing factory engine. What used to involve hugely expensive and time consuming head, cam and crank swaps can now be quickly and cheaply achieved with a simple remap and some light intake and exhaust work.
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But maybe you prefer the purity of naturally aspirated screamers. Sure, you’ll sacrifice some low-rev muscle, but the trade off is a crisp throttle response, zero lag, and the kind of soundtrack even the best turbo’d supercars can’t replicate.
Or perhaps you’re a traditionalist, still adamant that there’s no replacement for displacement, hooked on the effortless performance of a huge capacity motor that makes you feel like you’re Dwayne Johnson in a slow-mo sequence as you cruise down the road knowing you’ve got the muscle on hand to rotate the Earth at a moment’s notice.
Or maybe you’re addicted to rotary engines, supercharged motors, or even big diesels because you think power is overrated and torque is where it’s at. Or it could be you prefer a combinations of these configurations. There’s no right or wrong, each has its pluses and minuses, and it’s one of the things that makes the car world such an interesting and varied one.
Sadly, that freedom to choose how your power is made is increasingly only available to used car buyers. Downsized four- and six-cylinder turbocharged engines have become the norm, and powertrains will only become less distinct in the electric era, though electric power has plenty of upsides too.
So what’s your favorite recipe for a big-power internal combustion engine? Leave a comment and let us know.