Atmo heroes

BEFORE WE BEGIN, a disclaimer directed to all lovers of gastropod molluscs – no ‘snails’ were harmed in the making of this feature.

It’s important we establish that the Wheels test team loves a good turbo. For starters, none of us has ever felt the twist of a Newton metre we didn’t enjoy, and the turbo has been responsible for countless significant transformations across every automotive segment. This ingenious exhaust-gas-driven induction air pump has helped bestow greatness on so many cars, to the point now where Mercedes-Benz and BMW, just as two examples, are so enamoured with the turbocharger that both German giants refuse to build an engine without one.

But our love can only extend so far. Because equally well established is the purity and intimate driver connection only a high-performance atmo engine can deliver. Which, of course, is what this feature is all about. It’s a celebration of free-breathing brilliance; of having to chase revs when really demanding speed, having a throttle pedal seemingly hard-wired to your synapses, and revelling in an open-lunged soundtrack that can only come when there’s no impeller between the exhaust manifold and the tail pipe.

In bringing together our field, we tried to gather representatives of disparate engine designs and characters. Our field of six spans just over $40,000 to well north of $400,000; from four cylinders to 10; and from 135kW to nearly four times that figure. But as this celebration will prove, an atmo hero is not ordained by cylinders or kilowatts – it’s by the number of hairs that stand up on the back of your neck when the tacho swings past the yard arm.

So, time to head for the hills – the ‘Haunted’ ones at Bryant Park, Moe,