I’m trying to defend the use of V12s by proposing that the weight factor can be mitigated by approaches not out of proportion to a supercar’s expected price (however, the 500s and 750s will probably never see a v12 again).

i dont believe the amg models cost 500k besides the slr lol

What we need…. is a v12 engine block machined from titanium billet. If they can machine bulkheads for the joint strike fighter this way, they can make an engine block for a $500k car.

It’s no secret that we’ve gained roughly a thousand pounds of added crap in our cars over the last 20 years. A base model 3′er used to weigh in under 2400lbs. Now we’re looking at 3400-4200lbs.

The 3 Series alone (E30 vs E90) has only grown by 70mm in length (an increase of 1.6%), 171mm in width (10.4%) and 41mm in height (3.0%). Do these alone justify a 33.05-35.98% (comparing lightest e30 to lightest e90 and heaviest e30 to heaviest e90) increase in weight? Hell no!

Lighter cars = less fuel consumed, less brake pads consumed, less materials needed to manufacture the vehicle, less energy needed by the machines assembling the cars, less fuel needed to transport those materials to and from the factories, less fuel wasted delivering the finished cars to dealerships…

Give it 5 to 10 years to let lighter weight parts catch up and become more affordable for manufacturing. I think when carbon fiber slowly becomes cheaper you’ll start to see it used across a variety of cars. Did Mercedes produce V12’s in the frugal mid-1970’s fuel crisis? Nope, but they did when the economy came back around in the afluent 1980’s. Give it time and you’ll eventually see one of the major German manufacturers proudly displacing a huge displacement V12 again.

If Merc or BMW were really worried about efficient engines then they would scuttle the AMG and M branches as they ONLY produce high displacement (for the # of cylinders) engines that chug gas.

They don’t have to cut the large-displacement engines… There are other ways of obtaining better fuel economy. Aerodynamics, higher gearing, lighter construction methods (you wouldn’t believe how much of the weight in each car is nothing but huge bundles of wire). We’re likely going to end up with the same result we had after the fuel crisis in the 70’s: a bunch of under-powered cars because there was no real effort put into alternative methods of saving gas mileage.

It is possible to “have your cake and eat it too”. Chevrolet, of all people, has been able to show that with the last two generations of Corvettes (even with 5.7L, 6.0L, 6.3L and 7.0L V8’s).