Engine of the Year award winners - does your car have one?

In 2021, Autocar picked 50 of our favourite road-going engines, including the Ford small-block V8, Lotus twin-cam and Porsche air-cooled flat-six.

In truth, we could have selected twice as many, but we had to draw the line somewhere.

Here, we’re looking at the best engines of the past two decades, according to the judges of the annual International Engine of the Year awards.

Let’s take a look:

Toyota’s ‘Mighty Atom’ 1.0-litre unit reigned supreme at the inaugural International Engine of the Year awards, winning the overall prize and the ‘Sub 1.0-litre’ category. The 998cc, 67bhp Yaris engine was praised for its 50mpg fuel economy and performance. One judge said it ‘performs like a far larger engine but is incredibly efficient.’ A 1.3-litre version of the engine arrived in October 1999.

The Honda Insight 1.0-litre IMA (Integrated Motor Assist) hybrid engine finished ahead of Ferrari’s 5.5-litre V12, Alfa Romeo’s 2.5-litre V6, and BMW’s 3.0-litre six-cylinder and 4.0-litre V8 diesels to grab victory in 2000. One of the judges, our very own Steve Cropley, called it “an elegant solution that ordinary people can afford.” With a light right foot, the 995cc three-cylinder engine could deliver up to 100mpg.

Japan’s stranglehold of the top International Engine of the Year award was broken (for now) by Germany, with BMW’s brilliant 3.2-litre straight-six unit taking the honours. Very much at home in the E46 M3, the engine developed 343bhp at 7900rpm and 296lb ft of torque at 4900rpm, with a top speed limited to 155mph. We said: “The grunty rumble from the quad exhausts at idle gives way to a serrated wail as the straight-six climbs to its redline.’

BMW secured another victory in 2002, this time for its N62 4.4-litre V8. The all-aluminium, normally aspirated, 90-degree V8 featured many technological advances, including the Valvetronic variable valve lift system. Applications included BMW’s 745i, X5 4.4i Sport, 545i and 645Ci (pictured) models. Commenting on its use in the X5 4.4i Sport, Andrew Frankel said the engine offered “compelling performance”. The N62 4.4 was developed into a 4.8 and made its way into the Wiesmann GT and Morgan Aero 8.

In our Mazda RX-8 used car guide, we said the rotary engine will be “expensive to maintain, even if it’s in good nick, and its impressive ability to get through a tank of petrol is secondary only to its unquenchable thirst for oil”. Without the benefit of a crystal ball, the judges praised Mazda for, ‘its sheer bravery in pursuing the Wankel format and making it work’, calling it, ‘smooth and strong, clean and compact.’

The International Engine of the Year award stayed in Japan, with the hybrid system used in the Toyota Prius winning the overall title and three different categories. In December 2004, the Prius was named 2005 European Car of the Year at the Autocar Awards, securing the most comprehensive win since the first-generation Ford Focus waltzed to a mammoth 172-point victory over the Vauxhall Astra in 1999. Of the 58 jury members, 37 gave the Prius top spot.

BMW has won 62 overall and category trophies since the first International Engine of the Year awards in 1999, with victory in 2005 kickstarting four years of dominance. The F1-inspired 5.0-litre V10 is one of the greatest engines of all time, developing 394bhp in ‘normal’ mode, or 500bhp when you press the ‘M’ button. This was the last BMW M5 to be powered by a normally aspirated engine, and a way to go out in riotous, characterful style.

The 5.0-litre V10 was good enough to grab another title in 2006. We said: “The V10 just chews through gears and the 8200rpm limiter seems very pessimistic. Mechanical refinement is superb and that’s the key to the car’s everyday potential. Despite the claimed 4.7sec 0-62mph run, the faintly ridiculous 15sec 0-124mph time, and the fact that were it not limited to 155mph it would stroll on to 205mph, this car is entirely docile and has a chassis better suited to exploiting that breadth of ability than its predecessor.”

This was a good year for BMW, with its 3.0-litre twin-turbo crowned overall winner, along with category awards for its 2.5-litre straight-six (Best New Engine) and 5.0-litre V10 (Best Performance). Reviewing the engine in the BMW 335i, we said: “Most of the time [it’s] really quite exceptional. If you didn’t know, it would be all but impossible to tell that the engine was turbocharged.”

Another good year for BMW, with the 3.0-litre twin-turbo straight-six grabbing top spot for the second consecutive year. There were also category wins for BMW’s 4.0-litre V8 (3.0-litre to 4.0-litre), 5.0-litre V10 (above 4.0-litre), 2.0-litre twin-turbo diesel (Best New Engine) and the BMW-PSA 1.6-litre engine (1.4-litre to 1.8-litre). At the time, the German-French unit was used in the Mini Cooper S and Clubman, and Peugeot 207 and 308.

BMW’s dominance ends with Volkswagen’s 1.4-litre TSI taking the honours at the 2009 International Engine of the Year awards. As well as overall victory, the supercharged and turbocharged engine was named Best Green Engine and Best Engine in the 1.0-litre to 1.4-litre category. The photo shows Dr Ruediger Szengel, head of petrol engine development at Volkswagen Group, receiving the award.

Volkswagen’s twin-charger unit won again in 2010. The use of a supercharger and a turbocharger avoids the usual peaks and troughs in power delivery to give the engine the feel of a powerful normally aspirated engine. At the time, the unit was used to power the likes of the Seat Ibiza FR and Cupra, VW Polo GTI and Skoda Fabia vRS. Fiat’s 1.4-litre MultiAir was named New Engine of the Year.

Fiat’s 0.9-litre TwinAir engine was a deserved winner at the 2011 International Engine of the Year awards. The all-new, vertical-turbo twin-cylinder engine produced a strong 84bhp and 107lb ft of torque from as little as 1900rpm to deliver lively performance accompanied by a burbling soundtrack. There was one problem: fuel economy. Fiat claimed an optimistic 70mpg, but a lot of owners struggled to achieve half that.

‘No one has ever built a three-cylinder engine quite like this. It’s one of the most technically advanced and efficient engines we’ve ever designed,’ Joe Bakaj, Ford’s global powertrain engineering chief said in 2012. ‘The new engine introduces many new technologies that could be part of the DNA of future Ford engines.’ The B-Max was the first car to get Ford’s smallest ever engine.

Ford’s EcoBoost engine won again in 2013. The 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol engine, which was designed and engineered in the UK, achieved the highest score in the history of the International Engine of the Year awards. At the time, Ford said it was set to double production of the engine to keep up with demand. We called it a “game-changer” as it showed how much life remains in the petrol engine.

Ford won again in 2014, with Dean Slavnich, co-chairman of the International Engine of the Year awards, saying: ‘The 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine is one of the finest examples of powertrain engineering.’ Years later, Ford was giving full refunds to thousands of customers affected by sudden failures of the EcoBoost engines. This followed a BBC investigation, which found that hundreds of engines had overheated.

BMW was back on the scene in 2015, when its TwinPower Turbo three-cylinder was named overall winner at the annual awards. The 1.5-litre three-cylinder hybrid unit was also named Best New Engine and a class winner in the 1.4-litre to 1.8-litre category. There were also class wins for Mercedes-AMG, Tesla, Ferrari and McLaren, while Ford’s EcoBoost won the 1.0-litre category.

Get ready for a Ferrari lock-in, with 2016 marking the first of four consecutive victories for its 3.9-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine. There were four wins, including awards for Performance Engine, New Engine, the 3.0-litre to 4.0-litre category, and the overall prize. Graham Johnson, co-chairman of the awards, said: ‘It’s a giant leap forward for turbocharged engines in terms of efficiency, performance and flexibility.’

‘It truly is the best engine in production today and will forever be remembered as one of the all-time greats,’ Johnson continued. We praised the engine for having no detectable lag and a rev-hungry nature – a trait normally reserved for normally aspirated units. The engine produces 661bhp yet could manage an official combined fuel efficiency figure of 24.8mpg.

An engine such as this deserves greater detail. The F154 CB in the 488 GTB is a 3.9-litre V8 with a 90deg bank angle, flat-plane crankshaft, oversquare cylinder design and two IHI twin-scroll turbochargers, one for each cylinder bank. It produces 661bhp from 6200rpm to 8000rpm, with up to 561lb ft at as little as 3000rpm. The 0-60mph time is polished off in 3.0sec dead, with 150mph blitzed in just 13.3sec.

We said: “Ferrari’s greater achievement is to make the 488 GTB the finest turbocharged engine in production. Several manufacturers have moved from natural aspiration to turbocharging recently, but among them, the 488’s engine is remarkable for how little lag there is and how convincingly speed builds towards the top end, as it rattles into the 8000rpm limiter, when it feels like it’s barely out of the mid-range.”