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Which Car Never Got the Engine It Deserved?
One thing I’ve learned in my time with the Hagerty Community is to never underestimate what they (i.e., YOU) can contribute to the content we create here at Hagerty Media. I enjoy wondering about the variety of our collective hopes and dreams for our classic, antique, and specialty vehicles. Be it an engine swap or a full restoration, we all have such dreams, don’t we?
So here’s the question I pose to everyone: what if the cars we love also had hopes and dreams? I reckon among the first things they’d dream about is having the best engine possible under their hoods. So tell me, Hagerty Community:
What car never got the engine it deserved, and what is that engine?
I’ll answer the second part first. As a Ford Lincoln-Mercury enthusiast, I’ve used this answer more often than I can remember: The Ford “427 SOHC” big block V-8. This rowdy, single overhead camshaft version of Ford’s venerable FE engine was based on the 427 side oiler, but with hemispherical heads and that unique SOHC valvetrain. The idea was to make a motor that would put Chrysler’s 426 HEMI on notice, but it never reached such fame. And that’s a shame.
I suspect any Ford equipped with a 427 SOHC also needed one of those “as-is” stickers, just like the 426 Mopar it intended to usurp. That’s a necessary distraction, because Ford could have sold enough of these to justify all that effort. (Or so I’d like to believe!)
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Every Ford Thunderbolt needed this mill. It should have been an option for the Mercury Cougar. Or perhaps a limited run of “Cammer Continental Convertibles,” because that’s right up my alley. But now it’s your turn to contribute, valued member of the Hagerty Community:
What car never got the engine it deserved, and what is that engine?
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All good responses so far; the Fiero and Prowler are at the top, but I’ll toss another one in the mix. Why couldn’t have Jeep thrown a small V8 into the JK/JL Wrangler Rubicon/HardRock editions? The V6 is “ok”, and the 392 is way too much to be practical. An engine with good torque off road and MDS for cruising on road would have been a great powerplant.
The Volvo 1800 series would have been taken a bit more seriously if it had more horse power. The engines we’re bullet proof but never produced more than 130 hp in there later years.
Pacer and Monza said the Rotary Nut.
How about the Porsche 924 with it’s tepid 95 HP VW engine? Certainly upgraded by 944 and 968 models, both of which I have owned.
after seeing what cars that need or should have had a high performance engine in it I agree with most, but there R some cars that really need a Higher performance engine, or V8 or a bigger engine than it came with. This is why we have so many engine swaps the one i like best is the Chrysler crossfire srt-6,at 350hp,, most of you don’t know, after the paint, glass, and emblem this car is all Mercedes and it should have had a V8 in it so I did put a Mercedes SL55 supercharge engine with 485HP, , bolted right in , engine and tranny was a bolt in, even the stock driveshaft bolted right up. after driving it for a few weeks i decided do a few mods and With a few mods my (should have been built V8 crossfire) runs on the drag strip @ 10.55@ 132mph and my wife drives it to store (sometimes) it is a very easy car to drive on the street and on the strip
so the question was WHITCH CAR NEVER GOT THE ENGINE IT DESERVED ? Well my crossfire got the engine it deserved. jim amx1397
1972 -74 cuda’s and challengers. The 400 + 440 was still available, although detuned, it still fit between the fenders.
Plymouth / Chrysler Prowlers could have had the 4.7 HO v8 from the Jeep Grand Cherokee and a manual tranny as well
I wish Pontiac kept the 405hp super-duty 421 or even the 385hp super duty 389 going one more year and put in the 64 GTO. then I could still enter the original / restored class at car shows.
We could also identify cars which had engines they never should’ve had or engine swaps which should never take place. Any GM car with the iron Duke 4 cyl. How about a 69 Chevelle with a Cadillac 8-6-4 V8 swap? A C4 Corvette with an early Cad 4.1 V8? Smooth. My top worst swap would be a full sized Caddy with a 5.7 early GM diesel. Oh…Wait
All the eighties cars deserved more muscle. I’d like to own one, but recently bought a 1983 Supra. Slow car, I had one in the nineties and it seemed fast back then.
How about the 1st generation Camaros with either the L79 350 HP 327, or the L76 365 HP 327
1970 GTO should have got a ram air 5 would have been competitive with the 1970 chevelle LS6 454
Ford should have offered the Supercharged 5.4 that came in the Lightning and Harley editions available in the Extended cab truck, especially the King Ranch and other “special” editions.
1980’s Monte Carlo Super Sports. They should have had the tuned port 350 the iroc’s had
MGB and MGA should have gotten a continually refined version of the DOHC B-Series in the MGA twin cam
They also should have gotten a lot more 3.5 Rover V8s stuffed in more than 2500 cars (including the convertible).
the S13 and 14 240sx needed forced induction stateside. The CA18, SR20, KA24 with a turbo, doesn’t matter.
More modern stuff, the BRZ/GT86/FRS,etc all should have gotten the Subaru turbo 4 at least as an option. It’s total B.S. they pretended it couldn’t fit and/or would ruin the cars. They simply wanted to keep it’s power to weight worse than the WRX. Now that the 300 turbo 3 engine is around, that 100% should go in. Or does the magic math work that a 300hp turbo 3 could be a 350-400+ turbo 4?
Why doesn’t Toyota pull and Aston Martin Duratec move and slap two of their turbo 3s together to make a straight six that’s a worthy successor to the 2jz.. 400-500hp seems possible.
Water cooled early porsches should all have gotten a VW Audi group engine option. The flat 6 is their heart and soul, but those IMS and bore score prone engines are heavy and can be fragile.
AUDI/VW engines have the same bellhousing bolt pattern and should have been added as special options. A 4.2 Audi V8 (not the bad one) in a Boxster would be massive fun, or could have at least put the mezger six in some mid engine offerings. Lots of V engines actually weigh less than those m96 m97 or whatever flat sixes.
Heck they could have made a 1.8T boxster and call it the 550 boxster or some homage to early mid-engine 4 banger cars.
2nd gen Firebirds got the 455, why did the Camaro not get a 454?