If you visualize the lifespan of production V-8 engines in general as that of a Funny Car blitzing the quarter mile, let’s just say the driver is getting ready to pull the ’chute. The ticking you hear ain’t your lifters; the lap timer is running down on the great eight, with the final V-8s likely thumping around into the early 2030s under the hoods of trucks and a forlorn contingent of muscle cars and rarified sports cars. There will be holdouts afterward, but increasingly stringent regulations will continue to demonize big displacement in favor of a gently humming set of electric motors.
It’s written on the pit-lane wall, folks. Ford announced its intentions to electrify 40 percent of its fleet by 2030, while General Motors shoots to essentially eliminate its portfolio of internal combustion by 2035. Dodge’s first battery electric car—known only as the goofily named Challenger eMuscle—arrives in 2024. Even if these automakers keep pumping out V-8-powered Mustangmaro GT-Hell500s for decades to come, the market will have shrunk geographically. California announced plans to ban sales of ICE vehicles by 2035, with similar bills in place in New York, Massachusetts, and the city of Seattle. We’re not saying these proposals are guaranteed to pass, but the sentiment certainly isn’t going away.
UNLIKE AUTOMOTIVE ENGINES, THE MARINE V-8 IS LESS ABOUT PERSONALITY THAN IT IS PURE, UNCUT POWER.
That’s just for the American stuff. It’s worse for the overseas V-8 junkie; Jaguar Land Rover and Bentley are two V-8 purveyors among a growing number of automakers
