Ford takes the award for 2012 Engine of the Year
Ford 1.0L EcoBoost Engine
The 2012 International Engine of the Year has been crowned, and the Ford 1.0-litre EcoBoost three-cylinder is the one that took said crown, in a year that petrol motors were both king and queen.
This has been the second consecutive year that a tiny-capacity engine won the award, and this thing is rather tiny considering the engine block covers the size of an A4 piece of paper. It is definitely a great achievement for Ford, this being their first win in the thirteen years of the well-recognized awards.
The smallest of the company’s EcoBoost engines combines turbocharging, direct fuel injection alongside variable valve timing in order to maintain the performance of larger engines, but with a much better fuel efficiency.
The panel of judges was made up of 76 motoring journalists from thirty-five countries who awarded 401 points in total to the winning engine which placed it well ahead of the runner-up, the Volkswagen 1.4-litre ‘Twincharger’ with 288 points.
Ford currently uses the engine in Europe but it will soon be used in models like the Fiesta city, and will be making its Australian debut in the Ford EcoSport baby SUV in 2013, the plan being for it to eventually be available in the Focus and Fiesta locally.
Holden’s upcoming 1.4-litre range extender, that we’ve talked about yesterday, was voted Best Green Engine, for its role in removing the ‘range anxiety’ traditionally associated with most electric cars.
The rest of the awards were mostly dominated by repeat winners in the various capacity-focused categories, however it should be noted that as far as this awards show is concerned, this was a pretty bad year for diesel engines and hybrids, which didn’t achieve a single category win, as mentioned earlier the awards having been overwhelmingly for petrol engines.
