Ugly Engines, Part II
Any American V8 from the ’70s. These came from the “We’re being hit from all sides by regulations and don’t care what our engines look like” era. Truly awful, every American powerplant from this era is completely blacked-out, bathed in a sea of hoses and vacuum lines, and sports a hideous round air filter housing atop the engine. The ’75 Cadillac De Ville engine shown above looks downright pre-industrial.
Most older Citroën engines. It wins points for actually looking like an engine and featuring some au naturel aluminum, but the placement of the spare tire and random plastic orbs scattered throughout the bay definitely detract from the engine’s appearance. I understand the cars’ packaging efficiency was a priority, and their unique hydraulic system was a selling point, but c’mon. Is the top of the engine bay really the best place for all of that?
The Jaguar AJ V8. I include Jaguar’s first V8 engine not so much for its appearance, taken in isolation, but for the fact that it exemplifies the inevitable trend toward completely plasticized engine bays. The Coventry automaker’s sin of making their otherwise-excellent engine look like a kids’ toy is all the more grievous given the utter beauty of classic Jaguar engines, like their XK inline 6 from the early ’60s. Give me some aluminum to look at! Plastic, plastic, plastic…
Click here to read Part I of my series on ugly engines.