http://www.cheatsheet.com/automobiles
Source: Mazda
Thinking outside the box does not always constitute a brilliant design. While engineers may want to change the face of autos as we know it, there is a huge difference between smart and practical. Mazda’s rotary engines were an incredibly clever creation, but few people know how to work on them, so engine maintenance is a hassle to say the least.
Many of the engines on this list are also increasingly hard to find, for most of these vehicles have been out of production for some time. Parts are increasingly scarce. Those who do seek them out either pay a premium, or get them for next to nothing because no one wants to deal with them.
Probably the wildest aspect of this article is that this list just scratches the surface — there have been countless other cars in history that packed some seriously strange power. But for us, these next ten engines were a cut above the rest, and even though they worked, it is unclear as to if any of their influence carried on in the cars we see today.
Source: Toyota
1. Toyota Previa
In 1994, Toyota began slapping superchargers on the 2.4 liter engines found in their minivans. Since nobody supercharges a minivan, we had to include this one on the list, and this engine was not only odd because it was supercharged (something Toyota is not known for at all) but in that it featured a unique mid-engine layout directly beneath the front seats. While the motor was sound in design, its positioning was not, and changing spark plugs typically involved removing a passenger seat, carpet, and an access panel just to get to the damn thing.
Source: Youtube
2. Cizeta V16T
Oh what a mess this car was, and it had so much potential too! Originally introduced in 1988, this Italian sports car offered a 560 horsepower, 6.0-liter motor that was not a V16 at all, but two V8 engines that shared a single block and were joined at the hip by a timing case. To say that these things were complicated would be quite the understatement, and we don’t even want to think about what it would be like to service one of these behemoths.
Source: Mazda
3. Mazda/NSU Wankel Rotary
The Mazda/NSU Wankel motor is a type of rotary combustion engine that was first conceived in the early 1960s by Felix Wankel, a German engineer. While the idea of a giant camshaft flopping around inside an engine willy-nilly may have sounded like a piss-poor design at first, it proved to be quite a hit for the Japanese automaker, who eventually took the design and put it into production vehicles for several decades. These lightweight engines were horrible on gas, but they packed one hell of a punch, especially when equipped with a turbocharger like in the late Mazda RX-7.
Source: Youtube
4. Cadillac V8-6-4 (L62)
In 1981, Cadillac and the Eaton Corporation designed a cylinder deactivation system called “Modulated Displacement.” This “engine of the future” also ran real-time diagnostic scans while driving, and Cadillac was so certain that its L62 was a game-changer, that it installed this system on every model. But Cadillac was using technology from the early 1980s, so the computer could not effectively manage cylinder-deactivation all of the time, and dealers would sooner deactivate the system than try and track down any electrical bugs in it.
Source: Youtube
5. Honda G-Series
This slant five cylinder engine was found in both the Acura Vigor and in the first generation TL, and looks like it would be more at home in something like a Volvo or an Audi. Honda claimed that being mounted further back, it gave the car a 60/40 weight distribution and argued that the inline-five offered more power than a four-cylinder but was smoother than a V6. While this engine was solid, the cars it came in were lame, thus dooming this rarity to a nine-year production time.
Source: Facebook/Bugatti
6. Bugatti W16
The Veyron’s W-16 is one of the most powerful and complex production engines in history, and it has an equally strange configuration to match all that oomph. It’s a mid-engine, 64-valved, quad-turbocharged, 1,000 plus horsepower freak-show, and while its production has officially been discontinued, the Veyron’s W-shaped, 16-cylinder powerplant does indeed still look like a group of Volkswagen engines melted together.
Source: Youtube
7. Saab 96
While it was adorable on the outside, this longitudinally mounted, 57 horsepower, triple carburetor, three-cylinder oddball was an anomaly like no other under the bonnet. Efficient when working, this piece of prehistoric power was a hot mess to fix when something went awry. So within a few years, Saab replaced the three-cylinder oddity with a V4 that brought forth considerably more power, reliability, and a slew of rally cars.
Source: Youtube
8. Oldsmobile Jetfire
In the early 1960s, Oldsmobile built a car with a turbocharger, and while it may have not been a beast, the car did see a lot of unique engine firsts for the auto world. GM used what it called “Turbo-Rocket Fluid,” which was a blend of distilled water and methyl alcohol in the intake manifold to cool the air going to the turbo, but mechanical issues with the turbocharger system and people forgetting to refill their “Turbo-Rocket Fluid” reservoirs plagued GM incessantly.
Source: YouTube
9. Tucker 48
Part airplane engine, part water-cooled mid-engine marketing, the Tucker 48 really had the potential to be great. The flat-six plane engine put down 166 horsepower, was designed to be both serviceable and reliable, and Tucker engines were tested at full throttle for over 150 hours just to see how they would hold up. But after several public scandals involving the company’s owner hit the headlines, the company folded, leaving us to wonder how different the auto world would have been if Tucker’s fighter-jet engine cars had taken-off.
Source: Youtube
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