Downsizing and turbocharging makes it much easier for car manufacturers to increase performance and simultaneously lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. It appears even the Italian Stallion of the automotive world, Ferrari, is coming under ever-increasing pressure for improved emissions and fuel consumption. The Italian automaker might eventually abandon its high-revving naturally-aspirated engines all together.
It’s perhaps with little surprise then that Ferrari’s potential shift towards downsizing and turbocharging hasn’t been met with much love from Ferrari-philes who have a distinctive distaste for hissing of turbochargers hiding underneath a bonnet or engine cover of a Ferrari road car.
Another factor heaping credence to the rumour is that from next season F1 will forego naturally aspirated V8 engines in favour of smaller turbocharged six-cylinder units, and as Ferrari have always harnessed F1 technology for their road cars it’ll be unlikely that technology garneded from a turbo F1 era doesn’t filter down to road cars in some way.
Rumours suggest the most likely engine to do duty in future Ferraris may be the 3.0-litre V6 or 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 unit as found in the new Maserati Quattroporte and Ghibli range. With 390 kW and 700 Nm of torque in the V8 Quattroporte, thankfully, Ferrari has already shown quite a bit of experience in producing powerful, visceral turbocharged engines.
And don’t forget that 30 years ago they made a car featuring a small capacity twin-turbo V8 engine called the Ferrari F40, and that’s often considered as one of the world’s greatest supercars ever made.
