BMW V10 and AMG 6.3

hiimandy1

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So today, the current generation M5 ended production. The M6 isn't far behind, meaning the end for the S85 V10. Mercedes is now introducing the new S63 with the twin turbo 5.5L, replacing the 6.3 (Okay, 6,208cc) V8.

I know that turbocharged engines are more efficent, and have more low end torque; numerically, these engines are better. I can't help but think, however, that the higher revving natrually aspirated engines have more character. Motor Trend's review of the new S63 said the new V8 had less character and noise, and in the cars these engines are fitted to, character is important. The majority of cars can have whatever engine makes more sense by the numbers, the 328 and 335, E350 and E550, these cars are sold in large numbers to people who largely couldn't care about character. Is there anyone else here who is unhappy with the movement to charged engines accross all performance lines (Except Lexus, oddly)?
 
What rubbish is this, engines having character?
It's the same as saying cars have souls, they don't!
Cars don?t have souls.
There, I said it. Alfa Romeo drivers, prepare to have your hearts broken.
That?s a rather controversial statement for a first column, don?t you think? It?s like getting a pentagram tattoo on your chest before your first communion. I expect to have my lifelong petrolhead credentials called into question here with such blasphemy?the belief goes against everything we?ve been bred to believe. This we know already, drilled through hearsay and repetition: a stern, Teutonic Porsche will inevitably be inferior to the fiery, wild-tempered Ferrari, even if it is faster, better handling, stops quicker, and churns out faster lap times?and if a car happens to break down, catch on fire, inhales head gaskets, snap your neck off, or spray oil like a fire hose at a peace protest, that?s ?character? and ?quirkiness? in the same sense that your ex-girlfriend waking up screaming in the middle of the night was ?personality.?
Well, don?t believe it for one second. The idea, as argued by vitriol-spitting fanboys around the world, that a technologically-advanced car with the latest electronic advantages is saddled with the ?soulless? argument as a detriment is pure bunk; a vicious myth perpetuated by misleading ideology and half-truisms from the mouths of fanatics. And by those standards, an ox cart is the automotive equivalent of Marvin Gaye.
Let?s take a look at the Nissan GTR, frequently portrayed as motoring?s clean room when compared to the S&M dungeons coming from Italy and even Germany. From the brochure, the following:
nissan-gtr-wallpaper1-620x403.jpg

?The Nissan GTR is quite simply the sum of everything we are. Passionate. Innovative. Driven. Real world.?
Too often, mere mention of the GTR is usually accompanied by the words ?Playstation on wheels,? stemming from a land that knows its way around mass-produced, efficient products that just work. Nissan GTRs are supposed to be perfect; that?s why they have more computing power than Project Gemini. Efficient in their speed and single-minded in their purpose, their computers guide them like silent, precise, deadly cruise missiles. They?re not supposed to flinch. They?re merely supposed to tick off perfect track times through superior technology: variable all-wheel drive, 15? Brembo brakes, a twin-turbo engine built in a clean room by men dressed in HAZMAT-style suits. The in-car display reads out G-forces and yaw rates and track telemetry data, for God?s sakes, that the obsessive driver can upload onto a Cheeto-stained USB drive and analyze on his computer in his parents? basement. And it?s dead-on reliable?you won?t have to add a quart of oil and adjust the wheel bearings every 1,000 miles.
After all, computers don?t have soul, right? They?re merely machines that make beeps and boops and passionless calculations of input data, designed to serve a function without drama?just like the GTR. Yet here is the brochure, spouting off about ?passion? and ?drive!? What sort of malarkey is this?
Moving on to another Japanese company: remember what Lexus says? ?The relentless pursuit of perfection.? Perfection may be well and good, but critics will say that there?s no soul behind it. Once you stamp out all the imperfections and quirks, you end up with something eerie?something that does its job almost too well. It?s something the Japanese have been satirized for decades.
On the other side of the globe, Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons was fond of saying ?the car is the closest thing we will ever create to something that is alive.? And we all know living creatures certainly aren?t perfect. No, as automotive enthusiasts we need a semblance of personality even in our efficient little commuter pods?something that we can feel connected to in a completely irrational and rose-tinted manner that we wouldn?t reserve for our rotary washer/dryer combo.
Sir Lyons may have a soul himself, but his products never had. Even a 1959 Jaguar XK 150 Drophead Coupe has no more of a soul than a Honeywell 4-slot toaster, a pair of faded winter boots, or an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer. With the exception of Morgan, Bristol, or the laughable remainder of Britain?s once-proud automotive industry, all cars are the byproducts of the same robots churning out the same welds from the same hunks of steel and petrochemicals. No part of a car is arguably alive, at least?mercifully?in the biological sense. Until Geiger Motors introduces the Necronomicon GSR onto a fearful and terrified populace, no car can be defined as having anamorphic traits such as ?personality? or ?character.? Why should it? In the most basic, unromanticized sense, the automobile was made to perform a specific function, like a pair of boots or the aforementioned toaster.
Where on the assembly line is the ?soul? installed? If an Alfa Romeo crashes, does its soul go to heaven?
This may sound lifeless and depressing to you, but fear not: there is still ?soul? and ?passion? involved in the business of building cars. Where do they come from? They stem from the legions of engineers and designers who set out to work, every single day, to build the best car with the constraints they have. They are the ones who toil over the car day and night, designing and redesigning to meet their deadlines, working fervently to craft the best machine they can that they?re proud to have worked on before the draconian marketers, lawyers, and beancounters get to it.
ferrari-passion-ad-620x439.jpg
?Passion? Available at Target for $39.95 a bottle.
There?s inherent passion in everything?whether it?s to build the most technologically advanced, hardest-gripping, precise supercar like the GT-R; expanding on multiple legendary racing victories like Ferrari or Porsche; defying the status quo with a lime-green, ten-cylinder middle finger as Lamborghini does, or sticking with a tried-and-true formula with the Dodge Viper?s ?big-ass truck motor on a 1880s stagecoach chassis? principle. Drawing from years and years of training, experiences, and book learning, the professionals who develop them are part of companies with immense resources and virtually limitless funding at their disposal. Naturally they?re going to go and build the world?s greatest, most reliable cars, and if they do it via thoroughly modern supercomputers or (transverse) leaf springs then so be it.
Somebody once argued to me, ?Since a car is made from thousands of parts, a good portion of which differing from one model to the next, every model of car has a number of traits, and cars can have character and personality when the traits become numerous enough.? I accepted it as a rational argument, even though it merely happens to go against every single engineering and mass-production principle ever devised.
The notion that a car?s imperfections, even the drastic ones, are somehow viewed as a charming trait is a long-overdue anachronism, dating back to legions of MGB and Triumph apologists who spend more time on the side of the road adjusting Lucas points than actually driving the damn things. ?Ooh, it?s character,? says the stereotypical tweedy driver as he struggles to contain the steam emanating out from the hood of his Jensen-Healey. If the passion of the engineers is to devise a product that functions perfectly, then frequent carburetor adjustments and throttle linkage replacement is anathema to their original visions. Would you buy an old toaster that shot six-foot flames out the top every other Monday? That?s not ?character,? that?s merely defective engineering, and if it?s not sorted out by a proper professional then you?re just cheating yourself.
What you are experiencing then, when you mash your pedal into the carbon fiber and the visceral roar of aluminum pounding steel hits your ear, is the collaborative efforts of the men and women who set out that day to design something that puts a smile on your face. The passion comes from their dedication and hard work, not the bits of 6111 aluminum alloy flinging about at 8700 RPM from behind your shoulder blades.
We don?t need fiery Italian temperament to find soul and passion. Even the lowliest 1994 Kia Sephia?and this is the part where I stretch my own enthusiast credentials?was designed passionately, if to a far lesser extent than a sports car: if it ticks the boxes of function, efficiency, reliability and low cost then you know somebody lost sleep on achieving that feat. Even if the end result became distorted as a result of running the beancounter gauntlet, its stalwarts still bravely tried. After all, who sets out to build the 2nd best in class? Not even the Chinese companies. [I might argue that point ? MF]
Think about that next time you watch a GTR Nurburging lap video. Or climb into a rental Hyundai.
- Blake Rong
http://www.thesmokingtire.com/2009/editorial-cars-have-no-soul-viewer-submission/
 
nope i love everything about turbocharged engines. The only downside i can think of is added complexity to intake and exhaust piping as well as the potential for heat build up. Both of which can be overcome proper design.
 
I am saddened by this trend. That BMW V10 was a masterpiece and made the car stand out from the rest of the 5-series range. Putting the torque monster from the X6 in the new car will take it further from the race track than an M5 should be. Forced aspiration is ungentlemanly ... any goose can bolt on a turbo for some big power gains ... it takes a craftsman to get the most out of a naturally aspirated engine.
 
Old piece of furniture with knots, bug holes, stains, chips, swelling, rubbed-off-finish = "It has an authenticity and character you won't find with a new piece."
New piece of furniture with a flawless finish and construction = Clinical. No personality.

Car that was hard to drive for any reason, did one thing exceptionally well or did one thing exceptionally poorly = car with soul.
Car that does everything effortlessly and can do all things reasonably well = Clinical. No personality.

Same language is used in many industries.
 
meaning the end for the S85 V10.

No, they keep producing the V10 in small numbers in case any M5 or M6 engine failed sometimes, they do that with the old S38 (M5 E34) too, because the engine needs either a rebuild or a replacement every 200.000 - 230.000 miles.
 
:facepalm:

+2

How the hell were you people expecting BMW to get 600+ hp out of an N/A motor? Spoiling the handling by installing an even larger and heavier V12? A 10k RPM screamer that would be absolutely useless in a 2+ ton luxury car?

And as the owner of a turbocharged car, let me tell you that they feel anything but soulless. ;)
 
What rubbish is this, engines having character?
It's the same as saying cars have souls, they don't!

Engines do have character. Some need to be revved to all Hell. Some are torque monsters. Turbo'd engines have various amounts of lag. Engines sound different. Each engine is different, how they behave is their character.
 
+2

How the hell were you people expecting BMW to get 600+ hp out of an N/A motor? Spoiling the handling by installing an even larger and heavier V12? A 10k RPM screamer that would be absolutely useless in a 2+ ton luxury car?

And as the owner of a turbocharged car, let me tell you that they feel anything but soulless. ;)


Actually, I would want to see the M6 with an 10k rpm V12, because then It'll be ready to take on on the Ferrari 599GTB. :)
 
well, it's certainly easier to understand the inner workings of a naturally aspirated engine, as opposed to something more complex. maybe in that way it's easier to have a connection to one. it's hard to explain, but when one understands something completely, it's a special connection.
 
I can't help but think, however, that the higher revving natrually aspirated engines have more character
That's personal opinion, not fact. Try driving a turbo car some time ;)


...in the cars these engines are fitted to, character is important
:unsure: uhh... no. No one has ever bought an E63 AMG because it had "character". People buy them because its a Mercedes and because they can put their foot down and chase Corvettes (in a straight line).


Forced aspiration is ungentlemanly ... any goose can bolt on a turbo for some big power gains ... it takes a craftsman to get the most out of a naturally aspirated engine.
In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again? And you really don't know much about turbochargers, do you?
 
the higher revving natrually aspirated engines have more character.

I like the character of my turbo very much, thanks. With a similarly sized/powered N/A engine I'd have to rev the nuts off it, with this I can get sufficient push from most of the rev band.
In terms of noise, it's extremely quiet when you don't floor it, and gives off a lovely turbo note when you do. Its character is different, yes - but its character is there alright.



PS: Many people over here buy AMG Mercs because they can do high-speed cruising very comfortably, and let off a lot of steam when desired. Basically two cars in one, a posermobile and an Autobahn distanceeater. They wouldn't care much about whether it has got the Kompressor badge or not.
 
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That's personal opinion, not fact. Try driving a turbo car some time ;)
I have to echo this because turbos are fun, you get all the advantages of a high output engine, which is gobs of power, with the benefits of a smaller engine, good fuel efficiency. So you can look like you care about the environment with your Taurus SHO with Ecoboost and then tear up the road because you have a twin turbo'd V6.
 
I have to echo this because turbos are fun, you get all the advantages of a high output engine, which is gobs of power, with the benefits of a smaller engine, good fuel efficiency. So you can look like you care about the environment with your Taurus SHO with Ecoboost and then tear up the road because you have a twin turbo'd V6.

I like to think of it as the automotive equivalent of Jekyll and Hyde. :D
 
Non-rational cars don't need their engine chosen by numbers.

it's an M5 not a Zonda. If this was 1985 and we were talking about the E28 i could almost see what you are saying but at this point the M5 is just another big fast saloon/wagon among a host of other big fast saloons.
 
Engines do have character. Some need to be revved to all Hell. Some are torque monsters. Turbo'd engines have various amounts of lag. Engines sound different. Each engine is different, how they behave is their character.
Those are all traits of engines, yes, but not traits developed by the engine. Those come from the design attitude of the engineers that configure the engine layout and setup.
 
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