Why not go for broke?

It looks like the Toyota 86 is going to get a more powerful 4, but no turbo. One contributing factor may be that they don't want it to be substantially faster than baseline Supras.  It's disappointing, and brings up the eternal question - how come car companies almost never go for broke, throw a Hail Mary, play their wild card, let their freak flag fly... I think you know where I'm going with this. Why not give the engineers the green light to drop a disproportionately large motor in an unexpected - and humble donor? Why didn't Ford tell Mazda "berkeley it guys, let's throw the 3.7 V6 in the RX8. What's the worst that could happen?" Or Fiat going "The Multiaire is fine, but what about throwing the Giulia mill in the 500?". Sure, this goes against fundamentally conservative corporate culture, but it would create an instant classic, lots of buzz, and big cred with motorheads in general.   

What other corporate frankensteins would you guys like to see?

I would love to see the ISF/GS-F motor in a smaller, lighter package, but I know it will never happen.

That said, aren't the C55/C63, Hellcat Jeep/Dodge cars exactly what you are speaking of?

mr2s2000elise said:

I would love to see the ISF/GS-F motor in a smaller package.

That said, aren't the Hellcat Jeep/Dodge cars exactly what you are speaking of?

They are if you have the coin - but they are also porky and large. Kinda like the Buick Grand National was in its day. I'm thinking more Omni GLH - and then some.

As long as both have been around at this point it's almost a crime that the GTR turbo motor hasn't made it into a 370z.

I would also love to see a Ecoboost V6 in a Mustang, shouldn't be difficult.

Ooh, ooh -  how about if Honda had de-hybridized the 1st gen Insight and thrown in a K24?

Why the Miata never got a rotary is beyond me...

ShawnG said:

Why the Miata never got a 3.0l from the lincoln LS is beyond me...

Fixed that for you. 

EcoBoost V6 Mustang is the glaring one. I hoped that the Mach 1 would be that, but it's not.

Turbo all the things. 86/BRZ, ND, 3, CX3, etc.

The bigger 911 motors into the Boxster/Cayman is always the one that chaps me. A 3.6 996S motor in my 986S would be sublime.

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

In the case of the twins, it is because by the time they pulled 350 hp out of the engine and dealt with all the needed brake and suspension upgrades, the car would weight 3500 lbs. and cost 7k more.  Mustang and Hiundai own that market space. 

What people missed is that the engineers  DID let it all hang out and made a car that had no competition in a niche. 

There's money in my bank account waiting for Honda to release a Fit Si. Or even better, Fit Type R.

GM kinda did this with the Camaro ZL1 1LE - the Corvette team was PISSED that the "lesser" Camaro posted faster track lap times, notably at the Nurburgring.

The 2GR-FE is so good Lotus uses it. That Toyota hasn't dropped it in something like the FRS is just wrong.

That's how the R63 happened. Not smaller or lighter, but completely absurd and one year only. Dodge kind of did it with the V10 SRT truck thing, at least the first year they did it. 

Mazda has had a bunch of engines that they could have put in the Miata. Chevy or Ford or Dodge is just a parts bin away from a proper sport truck at any point. 

Mazdaspeed 3 comes to mind. They had the engine for the cx7. Then they made the speed 6. Then some engineer was like "we still have THIS car it fits in. Probably won't sell, should do it anyhow. " 

WIth the BRZ it's pretty simple. To upgrade the brakes, drivetrain, etc, add the power........you no longer have a sub-2800 lb $27k MSRP vehicle. It would likely be 3100 lbs, cost base STi money (if not a touch more), and end up being faster than the Halo STi. 

Even the turbo 4 Supra is going to be ~210 lbs lighter than I6. 

Mndsm said:

Mazdaspeed 3 comes to mind. They had the engine for the cx7. Then they made the speed 6. Then some engineer was like "we still have THIS car it fits in. Probably won't sell, should do it anyhow. " 

Honestly, this is one of the few factory cars I've driven and thought " Well THAT is BARELY a good idea, but it's just close enough to be AMAZING."  I suspect the Hellcat stuff has the same feel.

These things usually get shot down because there are shareholders, P&L statements, etc. The purpose of a car company is to make money, not to make cars. Risk and investment are rare bedfellows when you have to stand in the shareholders meeting at the end of every quarter and explain why you set fire to a pile of THEIR money.

I'd be happy if the manufacturers just brought us the cars they already sell elsewhere.  Like the RS3 Sportbak, RS4 avant, etc, etc...

I ended up with my Golf R because there are no decent, sporty awd, hatchback/wagons anymore that don't cost 6 figures.  It's great that Audi is finally bringing over the RS6 avant but I'd much rather see them bring the RS3/4 over first, those are cars people can actually afford...

A coworker of mine bought a Golf R, not exactly my idea of a DD, but its definitely a blast.   I'm a Jetta guy, so I love the idea of a Jetta R, but that's A3/S3 territory, so VAG will never make one.

dean1484 said:

ShawnG said:

Why the Miata never got a 3.0l from the lincoln LS is beyond me...

Fixed that for you. 

That happened.  As did the same engine into an FD.  

There are a lot of reasons why all of the suggestions never happened.  None of which most of you will accept.  But one glaring car- MS Miata.

Having to federalize a separate engine and emissions package is almost definitely the hold up. Reading about what Subaru went through with the WRX STi S209 package I can see why many manufacturers choose not to. Especially with cars that sell in small quantities.

Dodge likely gets away with the SRT and Hellcat line because the chassis costs .50 cents to produce after 10 years of tool amortization. (Kidding. Mostly. It's a brand image thing and they know the demographic that will buy them.)

For the record, I'd also love a 2GR-FE GT86 like the Tom's SEMA car or a ND with the upcoming Mazda i6 engine.

In reply to Mndsm :

MS3 is what I was thinking too. From an interview I read with one of the engineers on that team, they had a lot of freedom to make it crazy. Then when it was close to production time they could either release it on time or fix the crazy torque steer, and decided the torque steer added to the craziness and released it on time.

Yamaha, historically, has done some fun oddballs but then they don't sell.  I'll make some great fun cars and then go out of business..........what good is that.

I'd love something like a 160-170hp Honda fit.

My dream for the little Datsun is a Cosworth BDA-BDG motor in rally trim, a 175hp in a 1600lb RWD car.

It made the CTS-V wagon a classic :)  

Millions and millions of dollars, that's why not. The OEs have much higher standards than random guys in garages because they have learned* that reliability is important, and you can't just drop an engine in that will fail to meet their targets. Heck, OEs have some really weird rules. IIRC, Mazda requires enough wheel well clearance to have three sets of tire chains installed. For the Miata, they relaxed that to two. 

*with the possible exception of the Italians

Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:

The bigger 911 motors into the Boxster/Cayman is always the one that chaps me. A 3.6 996S motor in my 986S would be sublime.

That one's easy, model differentiation. Make what you described and either nobody buys 911s anymore or it's so expensive that nobody buys the cayman. Or it gets the big engine but way detuned so it's not faster, like what they do with the GT4, in which case nobody wins.

Porsche actually is one of the few manufacturers that takes the "go for broke" approach, they're just $300k quasi-supercars.

"Hey, we have the 911 turbo, and the GT3...what if we took the turbo drivetrain, deleted the awd system, turned the boost up to 700hp, and put it in the GT3 chassis?"