A bold title, you say? Rather a bold statement of McLaren. McLaren managing director Antony Sheriff to proclaimed, "The V12 engine is a thing of the past. The engine belongs in a museum." What makes him say so?
The V12 is a synonymous of supercars nowadays, take for example Ferrari FF or Pagani Huayra. The McLaren F1 – a car universally considered one of the most lust-worthy machines of all time – made use of a 6.1-liter V12 provided by BMW that pushed out 618 naturally aspirated horsepower.
But McLaren's MP4-12C makes 617 horsepower from just V8 displacing 3.8 liters. And here comes turbocharger’s power to help. V8 with a turbocharger is as powerful as N/A V12, but is much easier to package. Sheriff suggests that even a V6 would be a possibility for future high-performance applications from McLaren.
