The greatest road car engines ever made

Ford's flathead V8 let family cars cruise at 60mph and remained in production until 1954, with Simca military trucks using it into the 1990s. The air-cooled flat-four powered every Beetle and the Porsche 356. Ferrari's Colombo V12 started as a 1.5-litre 116bhp unit and grew to 4.9 litres and 318bhp by 1989.