Why This Is Easily The WORST 12-cylinder Engine Ever Made!

We all love a V12 – they sound great, the create decent power, and they can be found in some of the greatest cars ever made. There was one engineer that decided that a V12 wasn't good enough, and instead spread 12 cylinders over three banks of four. Mike Fernie takes us through the story of the Life W12, arguably the worst engine ever made.



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00:00 What is a W12 engine?
01:20 Intrdoucing the Life W12
02:21 Ferrari's W18 concept
03:38 The Life W12 is born
04:32 Pros and cons of a triple-four engine
06:56 Why was the Life F1 team so bad?
08:36 Success with a triple-banked engine
09:54 Bugatti's alternative W-engine plan
10:49 Why F1 needs more engine choices

[Zoko]

Cosworth is not only made V12 for Aston Martin Valkyrie and GMA T50, T50s and T33 but also designing and making brand new V16 engine for Bugatti that will rev up to 9000 rpm redline.

[johnsuffill]

The Napier 24-litre W12 engine of the 1930's was used in a couple of famous cars; the Napier Railton and the Napier Bentley. The former was commissioned by John Cobb who raced it several times at Brooklands prior to WWII, breaking many track records. The Napier Bentley was a much later car, being built in 1972.

As you can imagine, the sound of these monsters is.... well, monstrous!

[andyelliott]

A great name for the concept W18 engine would've been the "666" engine LOL.

[ilmelangolo]

You forgot the 1991 Audi Avus concept presented at the Tokyo Motor Show with its 6.0 L 60-valve W12 made of wood and plastic...

[Johnwalter]

And now look at what Rob Dahm is doing with Tyson's 12 Rotor, getting it ready to run and tune up. It's simillar, a three banks of fours. Rotors, which are three sides each, making it a 36 cylinder.

[stefanmaddock]

Never seen an engine like it before! A prayer for all the jaguars.

[ThreenaddiesRexMegistus]

The Napier Lion aero engine was built in the early 20th century in this configuration and was completely successful at delivering power. It was widely used. But it didn’t have to fit in a race car and had the advantage of big cubic inches and the normal de-rated output for constant running.

[MrSniperfox]

Why did nobody want an engine from somebody they'd never heard of who was proposing a "unique" design that the team themselves would have to pay to develop?

It's a mystery

[Ashfielder]

The Napier Railton’s W12 was the same as this, with three four cylinders stuck together. It’s a WW1 aero engine slapped in a land speed record car. I had a great chat with the lead engineer keeping that car going at Goodwood last year. Fascinating piece of engineering.

[memorimusic]

W engines with 3 banks were 'common' in the pre war days but to see that in the 80s in insane but so extremely cool!

[Hybris]

I love hearing about the high count engine designs, I especially love thinking about how some of these engines could be improved with modern tech like Freevalve to simplify the timing and tuning.

[chrisknight]

The Life engine was actually a 'proper' W form, like the Napier Lion. The Bentley and Bugatti Veyron engines are really the ones that are misnamed.

[sweetcorn]

Yes, yes, yes Mike. More engineering freedom on engine design.

[flydalton]

I love all the technical information from drive tribe

[jeffreyjeffrey]

Definately warming up to Mike, this type of historical mini doc is very cool.

[AndrewShakespeare]

I love F1 minnows, but the Life team had to borrow tyre pressure gauges from other teams at races.

[Sgt_SealCluber]

I think it might be more interesting to have a gear limited top speed and allow any size, power, and layout engine you want.

[matthewlange]

If you want to watch a formula with multiple engine layouts then I would suggest WEC and IMSA. The Sebring 12 hour race at the weekend had way more excitement than a whole season of F1.

[baronthorsteinn]

Also worth a mention is the one that got away: the MGN W12 that the AGS team almost signed up for. It had the same weird layout as the Life but was supposed to be fitted with some even weirder rotary valves - rather than opening and closing up and down, the valve was a rotating drum, where a slot in the drum moved past another slot in the cylinder head, thus opening and closing the gas flow in and out as needed. On a bench test, they didn't work anywhere near as well as Guy Nègre had intended, it only ever ran in a heavily-modified AGS JH22 at a private test which AGS had nothing to do with (other than supplying the chassis), and the engine's only attempt at racing was the Norma Auto Concept team being desperate for an engine for Le Mans in 1990... they fitted it in the car, but they never managed to get it started, and that was the end of that. AGS dodged a bullet with that one... so they never made it any further up the grid, but at least they weren't killed stone dead a year and a half before the F1 team finally went to the wall.

[HappyHands.]

I designed a W7 in 1980. it was 7 cylinders but only used up the liner space of a v6 with the center bank having 3 cylinders and the side banks being 2 cylinders