Even protected by the thick padding of an FIA-approved crash helmet, the 7.0-litre V8 powering the Nichols N1A made a mighty, vivid, sometimes painful impression. With EIGHT intake trumpets just a few inches away, you don’t just hear the furious sound but feel it deep in your skull and reverberating down through your chest and limbs.
It’s genuinely awe inspiring. A tirade of raw energy with a biblical all-powerful quality that’s hard to describe but impossible to forget. A humble pushrod V8 but with every bit as much impact and excitement as a high revving, super exotic V12 from Italy. What a motor.
This encounter got me thinking. Given a blank page and the engineering talent to actually conceive and design my ‘perfect car’, what engine would it have? In fact, this engineering talent would be unprecedented as the size and layout of the engine would have zero detrimental effect on the dynamics of the car. So, for example, in this imagined scenario a 1.8-litre four cylinder twin-cam screamer has no weight advantage or packaging benefits over a 6.5-litre V12.
Maybe that’s the answer? The 6.5-litre V12 from the Ferrari Daytona SP3. A stunning, savagely sharp engine that revs to 9,500rpm and delivers 828bhp, but can also pootle around without a single hiccup. Or the same configuration but built by Cosworth? The Valkyrie V12 is so intense and sounds incredible, plus it makes a nice round 1,000bhp and goes to 11. Well 11,100rpm, to be precise.
But maybe I’d miss the wild, evil response of a tuned big block V8? That angry, loping idle caused by valve overlap and the instant violence when you crack the throttle that seems to suck the air from your lungs. The shockwave of the noise and the physical sensation as your organs literally vibrate.
Or perhaps I’d pine for the rush of boost of a heavily turbocharged VR38DETT V6 from the Nissan GT-R, or the sweet, inertia-free fizz of a highly tuned four cylinder and the reward it offers for wringing out every last rev over and over again.
The simple truth is there is no singular correct answer, of course. Given my imagined genius, on the first day, maybe I’d make a V12. Day two, a big cube V8. And so it could go on: an in-line four with individual throttle bodies, a warbling five cylinder with anti-lag accompaniment, a beautifully responsive straight six.
On the sixth day, it would have to be a V10. For the V10 is truly made in God’s image
But on the sixth day, it would have to be a V10. For the V10 is truly made in God’s image. A sonorous, scintillating mashup of V12 high rev energy, left-field five cylinder character, deep motorsport pedigree, a kind of unattainable exotic fascination and an innate engineering rightness. It ticks every box. The V10 is, for me, king.
Why? Maybe it’s because the V10 F1 era is indelibly imprinted on my mind. Maybe it’s the memories of BMW’s maddest M5 – the brilliant E60 – and the disbelief it ever chose to build a saloon car with a 5.0-litre V10 in the first place.
Or the pure, crazed glory of the Lexus LFA; the howl of a Lamborghini Huracán baying for Ferrari blood. But whatever it is, on the sixth day I’ll be doing the world a great service. There isn’t a single car on sale today with a V10 engine, unless you count the RB17 track only hypercar. Which I don’t.
This madness must end. The world needs V10s. Lots of them.
Flat out in the greatest ever V10s: Porsche Carrera GT and Lexus LFA
