Many Americans like me believe that we should stick to the good American way of doing things in the auto industry. We shouldn’t import so many foreign-made products from Europe, Japan, China, and all those others.
But they have something going for them, especially European cars. Have you ever noticed that European cars have surprisingly little displacement in their engines compared to American cars? There is a reason for this. In Europe, car buyers pay tax for the displacement of their vehicle, similar to a license fee here in the US Naturally, people want to pay the government as little as possible and therefore with the help of insightful people like Enzo Ferrari, European automakers developed vehicles with a very small displacement that were still incredibly fast and fuel efficient. In fact, the first vehicle produced by Ferrari, the 125 S from 1947, was powered by a 1.5L V12 engine. That’s right, a twelve-cylinder engine. Tiny cylinders, but they produce a considerable amount of energy. A far cry from the large displacement engines that we see in the United States.
Congratulations to Europe on the achievement, but here in America we have our own way of doing things. That is not to say that you cannot prefer the European style of vehicles. You can prefer what you want. But history is history, and however you say it, American cars have always been known to have big engines. When you think of a classic American car, you don’t think of a Chevette or a Gremlin. You think of Mustangs, Corvettes, Camaros, Novas, Gran Torinos, Chargers, and Challengers. What do these cars have in common? Great engines.
Sadly, the modern age frowns on big engines and has subsequently allowed them to die down. The biggest engine you’ll typically find in a modern muscle car is a 6.2L, which looks big now, but is still a small block compared to the big engines of yesteryear.
