The inline-4. These so called “Four Bangers” were only used no more than in hatchbacks and low end sedans. Fast forward 30-40 years, 4 cylinders have expanded into muscle cars. Lightweight sports cars. Drift Cars. Rally Cars.
The Alfa Romeo 4C is currently the fastest car under 250 Horsepower. It is powered by a 1.6L Turbocharged I-4.
The Ford Mustang’s EcoBoost Turbo 4 producing 310 ponies, 10 more than the available V-6. My thoughts are that the V-6 may be discontinued the next generation. Same with the Six gen Camaro.
The Ford Focus RS is powered by a 340 HP 4 cylinder meant to compete with the Golf R, also with a 4 cylinder.
What could be the future of cars? As the world runs out of gas, the smaller ones grow big. But who knows what the future will bring?
The world will never run out of gas, at least not in our life times. There is more gas in shale in North Dakota region than the whole of the Middle East. As for propulsion that depends on government regulations. Most automakers said that the future is in turbo fours or smaller. Porsche has gone forced induction, as has BMW, and Ferrari. …But we’ve been though this before. People quickly forget the Buick GNX and Firebird Turbos
People can trash talk the Ecoboost 4cyl Mustang all they want, but having driven a few them at work, they are truly something else, and I enjoy them more than the 6cyl version. the new 4cyl motors coming out now, are really impressive, sure at first I wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but… having given them a chance, I love them. (But I will still have a major love for 8cyl any day of the week)
The sales and performance breakdown between the turbo 4 Mustang and V6 Camaro will be quite interesting. GM deliberately positioned the turbo 4 Camaro as the value leader and the V6 as the mid level value performance leader, which is opposite of Ford. The main advantage of force induction motors is the relative ease of getting more power out of them. It will be a fun sales race to watch in this generation.
