Is the V12 on borrowed time?

A very special engine, the big-bore, naturally-aspirated V12 is the calling card of Italy’s supercar makers. But how can it hope to survive? By Ben Miller

Straight-sixes are pretty special, as is a good Porsche flat-six. And while Audi/Lamborghini’s V10 is highly adept at raising hairs you didn’t know you had, nothing can prepare you for a big-capacity, turbo-free V12 from Ferrari or Lamborghini. There’s the romance, sure, not to mention the link to (admittedly bygone) motorsport and an uncanny mechanical balance. But mostly it’s their savage performance and transcendental noise that mark them out as the holy of holies, and engines apart from anything else man has yet wrought and deigned to bolt into a car. But for how long can such conspicuous hedonism last?