Box Autos

The 3.8-litre twin turbo V8 petrol engine from McLaren Automotive has claimed victory at the 2013 International Engine of the Year awards. The lightweight and highly efficient unit won the ‘3-litre to 4-litre’ category, making it the first new winner of the accolade for five years.

The M838T engine, designed and developed in collaboration with Ricardo, is fitted to the 12C and 12C Spider high performance sports cars and was recently upgraded to produce 625PS at 7,500rpm and 600Nm of torque between 3,000rpm and 7,000rpm. Despite this, there were no compromises to efficiency or emissions. Acceleration from a standstill to 62mph (100 km/h) takes just 3.1 seconds for both models*, while returning 24.2 mpg (11.7 l/100km) on the combined cycle and emissions of 279g/km. The figures are much better than most high performance sports cars, in keeping with McLaren’s commitment to class-leading fuel efficiency.

Now in its 15th year, the International Engine of the Year Awards were presented at Engine Expo 2013, and voted for by a panel of 87 automotive journalists from around the world.

Commenting on the M838T engine, one of the international judges, Dan Carney, freelance journalist in the USA explained:  “McLaren’s V8 seems to manufacture power on an industrial scale despite its compact size. As car makers struggle to avoid fuel consumption penalties in super sports cars, more of them will develop engines like McLaren’s.”

Mark Vinnels, Programme Director – New Vehicle Projects and Richard Farquhar, Head of Powertrain Programmes from McLaren Automotive received the award at a ceremony in Stuttgart, Germany.

On collecting the award, Mark Vinnels explained: ‘It is a real honour to collect this award, and is credit to all at McLaren Automotive for the hard work and dedication to the 12C project. We set ourselves ambitious targets with the M838T engine driven to produce a no compromise unit that was powerful yet refined, compact, lightweight, responsive and efficient.’