15 Ford GT40 seven-litre
Ford’s assault on Ferrari’s Le Mans dominance in the early 1960s has been recently documented in a Hollywood take on Ford’s desire to crush its Italian rival. The development of the seven-litre Ford V8 engine was an intrinsic part of that story.
When first launched, the GT40 ran a fairly mild 380bhp version of Ford’s well-used 4.7litre V8 engine. While Le Mans did not go well in 1964, the car enjoyed some success but was comprehensively outpaced by the Ferraris in the 1965 Le Mans test weekend. That prompted Ford to bring forward the use of a heavily reworked sevenlitre V8 unit that had been under development.
It was all too rushed and, though quick, the 427 cubic inch V8-powered cars were all out of the 24-hours early due to lack of development. However, the brutish seven-litre V8 paid dividends in 1966 when Ford dominated the race. With 485bhp and ample torque on tap, the seven-litre V8 was a winner and it a made a stunning noise with a fairly low-revving growl.
Ironically, after a Le Mans win in the back of the MKIV version of the GT40 in 1967, the big engine was banned from the classic race for 1968 on safety grounds.
The BMW M3 E30 engine was always going to be a hit, given the brains trust behind it. Paul Rosche, the head of the motorsport department, was given the task of creating a sporty 3-series and he used the four-cylinder two-litre 3-Series engine, increasing it to a 2.3-litre powerplant using four-valve engineering. It was kept to a four-cylinder engine, rather than six, as the larger engine started to vibrate much sooner than the smaller one, so the BMW engineers managed to wring 10,000 rpm out of the smaller block.
BMW’S six-cylinder engine had the same cylinder gap as the four-cylinder, so two combustion chambers were cut off and a panel bolted over the hole on the rear side, and the engine that had made the M1 so good and transformed the venerable M635CSI now had a fourcylinder offshoot made, astonishingly, in under a fortnight. With 300bhp from the 2.3-litre engine, the 960kg car was an instant success.
Bulletproof, the engine made the car a global hit in terms of race wins and sales as anyone, top team or amateur, could order a car, build it and go racing. And keep on going…and going! A legend was born.
I could wax lyrical all day about this beautifully wedge-shaped rally car.
The Stratos is an icon, and a large part of this legendary status is attributed to the engine tucked behind the cockpit. Making the concoction that bit more evocative, the 2.4-litre engine that powered the Stratos to three WRC titles on the bounce was lifted from a Ferrari Dino, revving up to 7000rpm. You’d be hard pushed to come across a V6 that doesn’t sound beautiful, but the Stratos’s motor immediately sends shivers down your spine. The optimal audible experience was to be found stood at the side of slow corners – preferably a gravel one with less traction available – where the Stratos would climb through the gears, sounding utterly glorious as its driver pulled the gears. Even when burbling away at tick-over, the Stratos grumble is fantastic.
The 2017 Roger Albert Clark Rally was the last chance UK fans had to enjoy this sound in competition, and among the gaggle of Mk2 Escorts, it truly shone. The MG Metro 6R4’s V6 can consider itself unlucky not to have made the cut elsewhere in this list, but the Stratos’s exclusivity and deeper bellow edges it for us.
For anyone of a certain generation, the Ford DFV is a soundtrack to their impressionable younger years. And what an engine is was.
Ford’s proactive competitions department, under the guidance of Walter Hayes, was an ambitious beast in the 1960s. Once it had conquered touring car racing with the Lotus Cortina and set the Ford Escort on its trajectory for glory, F1 beckoned. An alliance with Lotus founder Colin Chapman was the impetus, and he replaced his BRM engines with the new Ford-badged, Cosworth-designed Double Four Valve halfway through 1967. Jim Clark won on the engine’s debut. Once initial reliability worries had been cured, the floodgates were smashed apart.
Not only did the engine hit the headlines straight away, it can lay claim to have altered the face of grand prix racing.
Once Ford decided to make it available to customers (which wasn’t the initial plan), the off-the-peg powerplant could be slotted into the back of virtually any design. It was carte blanche for aspiring teams to join F1 with a motor that had also been adopted by the leading garagistes.
The record of success covered 12 Formula 1 World Championships in 15 years, ranging from Graham Hill’s triumph in 1968 to Keke Rosberg’s unlikely title against the onslaught from the turbocharged cars in 1982.
But it isn’t just the collection of silverware that the powerplant earned that makes it an all-time favourite. I have memories of standing around the back of Brands Hatch as a kid and hearing the sweet sound of the DFV approaching, it is impossible for the hairs on the back of your next not to stand on end. Then listen to two of them on track together: hit the moment right, and the harmonics synchronise and the audio experience is elevated to a whole new level.
There were derivatives: the DFY was an upgrade for 1983 and carried Michele Alboreto to success in Detroit and then the revamped DFZ took the naturally-aspirated title in 1987.
It was used at Le Mans, and turbocharged varieties were used in Indycar racing too, but these were just postscripts to the DFV story.