The Best Naturally Aspirated Engines of All Time

With the launch of each new car, it becomes clearer that naturally aspirated engines are a highly endangered species, particularly among non-domestic brands. Unboosted engines have had a fantastic run-one we hope continues for decades into the future-but now seems like an excellent time to honor the best naturally aspirated engines of all time. The list was compiled by our author by plugging dozens of iconic engines into a spreadsheet and letting a top-secret formula do the work. Objective factors taken into account include the engine’s deviation from the contemporary segment average of specific horsepower, torque, cylinder pressure, and piston speed. More subjective scoring aspects include how well the engine performed its intended function, its sound and character, its legacy to the brand, its affordability, and its engineering ingenuity.

Now, without further ado, our top eight naturally aspirated engines ever-along with four stirring honorable mentions.

The Chevy small-block was far more sophisticated than most people realized. It was oversquare with short skirts and a light block. But its real legacy lies in its longevity. More than a million were built in its first year, 1955, and derivatives of the engine cracked the 100-million mark in 2011.

General Motors was on top of the world in the mid-1950s, and its Chevrolet brand sold 1.6 million cars that year. The new V-8-available on all Chevrolet car trim levels in 1955-usually added just $99 to the price of the car compared with the standard “stovebolt” inline-six. The 265-cubic-inch V-8 also gave Chevy’s nascent sports car, the Corvette, a new lease on life. No Corvette has been factory-fitted with anything but a V-8 since. (1955 Chevy Bel Air pictured)

Like the Chevy small-block, Ford’s flathead (a.k.a. L-head) V-8 performed far above average in its day. Also like the small-block, the flatty made a similar impact on its era, bringing step-change engineering to the masses. When the flathead turned up in 1932, there wasn’t anything quite like it. It took some brave souls to engineer and market this kind of new, high-performance technology for launch into the teeth of the Depression. Horsepower became available and affordable to legions of folks from hot-rodders to fishermen and bankers to bank robbers. Higher-revving than the much larger V-8s offered by luxury marques such as Cadillac and Lincoln in the early 1930s, the 221-cubic-inch Ford V-8 was rated at 65 horsepower at 3400 rpm. (Henry Ford shown with 1932 Ford V-8)

The 239-cubic-inch, 1949 edition was arguably the apex of the flathead Ford's developmental curve, rated at 100 horsepower and bolted into a new model that helped revive Ford Motor Company after World War II. (1949 Ford V-8 convertible pictured)

Sure, the mighty Lexus LFA V-10 had more, well, everything years later, but the long-lived 4AGE democratized more technology, more of the time. Slotted into the engine compartments of front- and rear-wheel-drive small cars, it did wonders for Toyota’s reputation with free-spinning, twin-cam power; good torque; and good fuel economy. (1985 Toyota Corolla GT-S engine pictured)

The 1980s Corolla/Sprinter Trueno helped create Japan’s drifting scene, and the engine also powered the transcendent mid-engine MR2. (1985 Toyota Corolla GT-S liftback pictured)

The 4AGE was right on the money for technology, too, with its average piston speed being just 0.1 meter/second shy of the four-cylinder in the Porsche 944 S2. The Toyota mill copied a lot from Ford’s Escort Cosworth BDA engine of rallying fame, with the same bore and stroke dimensions and even the same valve sizes. (1986 Toyota MR2 pictured)

Its revs are astronomical for a relatively sizable (4.5-liter) engine, and it boasts just about the highest average piston speed in production today. It sounds precisely how winning the lottery should feel. The engine, unfortunately, is on its last legs with the introduction of the turbocharged 488GTB, which replaces the 458 line. (2014 Ferrari 458 Speciale engine pictured)

The version of this V-8 in the 458 Speciale cracks the 130 hp/liter and 85 lb-ft/liter thresholds. Its pistons average 24 m/s at its power peak. It’s genius. Sadly, it’s not an example of affordable engineering. (2014 Ferrari 458 Speciale pictured)

This 4.5-liter V-8 is a last hurrah from the naturally aspirated maestros at Maranello (see 488GTB, Ferrari). It’s a future classic, cramming everything they know about “atmo” V-8s into one place. And they’re saying good-bye. (2014 Ferrari 458 Speciale pictured)

So you loved the 1988 E30 M3, right? I mean, who didn’t? Well, I didn’t. It was a nice enough thing with an immensely nimble chassis, but it lacked the last little bit of finesse and zing from the engine that the great ones have. Great ones like the engine fitted to the Sport Evo version of the E30 M3. (1991 BMW M3 Sport Evo pictured)

When the M3 was overtaken on the racetrack, M GmbH gave the engine extra everything for the Sport Evo, meaning that instead of a chassis package that easily outhandled its engine, you got a holistic little beastie that had everything perfectly in balance. (Euro-market 1987 BMW M3 pictured)

The E30 M3 ground out 83 hp/liter at 6750 rpm from its 2.3-liter S14B23 four-cylinder. (BMW M3 engine pictured)

The Evo’s S14B25 made 95 hp/liter at 7000 rpm from 2.5 liters. And it even sounded better. Only 600 were made for 1990. They were never sold here in the States. Poor us. (1991 BMW M3 Sport Evo pictured)

This one was a real surprise when the numbers panned out, with its accessibility being a key to its high ranking. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, because everybody who drove one of these loved it. I mean, they LOVED it. (1997 Acura Integra Type R engine pictured)

Everybody I know who eventually traded away their Type R cursed their decision. One friend has yet to forgive his twins for being born. What can you say about a car whose average piston speed is just 0.3 m/s off the number-one engine on this list yet will happily pull away from traffic lights in second gear? (1997 Acura Integra Type R pictured)

The VTEC 1.8-liter B18C5 four-cylinder-which produced 195 horsepower at 8000 rpm when it debuted in the States for 1997-screamed all day at track days, operating in its top 2000 rpm doing everything it could to deliver to you the joy and liberation it clearly felt. (1997 Acura Integra Type R gauges pictured)

Clean and/or unmodified Type Rs rarely come up for sale today, and many attracted thieves over the years-all of this for good reason. (1997 Acura Integra Type R pictured)

This choice is fairly well known, coming out of a collaboration between McLaren and BMW in the early 1990s, and there’s a reason why it’s usually at the top of lists like this. (1993 McLaren F1 engine pictured)

BMW had a bunch of ideas it wanted to try but which were too expensive for its own production models. McLaren wanted a non-turbocharged engine to back up the purity of what it wanted the F1 to be. (1993 McLaren F1 pictured)

The end result is a 600-plus-hp 6.1-liter marvel of a 7500-rpm V-12 that, even detuned to meet the rules, won Le Mans in its first attempt despite not being designed with motorsports in mind. (McLaren F1 GTR racing car pictured, on its way to winning at Le Mans in 1995)

The BMW S70’s throttle response, sound, power-to-weight, and specific power set new benchmarks that took a decade to breach. (1993 McLaren F1 pedals pictured)

And, even if you couldn’t afford one (and who besides Ralph Lauren and Elon Musk could?), its valvetrain technology became a staple of first the M six-cylinders and then standard BMW models. God bless trickle-down engineering. (1993 McLaren F1 pictured)

In creating our list-topper, Honda gave itself a 50th birthday present, powered by a screaming 2.0-liter four-cylinder powerplant-code name F20C-that looked and sounded like it belonged in a Formula 1 race car. (2000 Honda S2000 engine pictured)

It developed revs (it had an 8900-rpm redline) and power (240 hp) unheard of in a production engine this size and barely credible from pure racing engines just a decade earlier. The F20C had titanium connecting rods, slivers of cylinder walls, and three levels of variable valve timing. (2000 Honda S2000 pictured)

The engine helped the car earn many accolades, including three straight Car and Driver 10Best Cars awards, and it has proved to be almost bulletproof when maintained according to the book, no matter how often its tachometer touches the 8900-rpm redline. (2000 Honda S2000 engine pictured)

If Honda had put the F20C in more cars here, nobody would dispute its legend. The torquier 2.2-liter S2000 F20C1 engine that came in 2004 for the North American market, by the way, was also excellent but-more important-it wasn't as rev-happy. (2000 Honda S2000 pictured)

So much wonderful sound. So much horsepower-730 in the F12; a whopping 789 in the LaFerrari, pre-electric assist. So delightfully amazing. More, please. (2014 Ferrari LaFerrari engine pictured)

(2014 Ferrari LaFerrari pictured)

Once it finally hit the streets after years of gestation, the super-rare Lexus V-10 beat a Ferrari 599 HGTE in a comparison test. That ain’t easy. Neither is 8700 rpm out of 10 cylinders. (2012 Lexus LFA engine pictured)

(2012 Lexus LFA pictured)

This revelation of a four-cylinder stick-shift sedan was more fun than just about anything else on the road in 1989, mostly because of its 150-hp 1.9-liter mill. It’s a damn shame that fewer than 5000 made it to the States. (1994 Peugeot 405 Mi16 engine pictured)

(1994 Peugeot 405 Mi16 pictured)

The pinnacle of Porsche’s so-called Mezger flat-six, the GT3’s high-revving engine is a close derivative of the GT3 Cup race car engine. Unfortunately, it wasn’t cheap, and it’s probably the last of its breed. This makes us quite sad. (2012 Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0 engine pictured)