Our beloved friends over at AutoBild are reporting that Mercedes-Benz is considering discontinuing the production of the V12 engine. The current CL 600, SL 600, CL 65 AMG and S 65 AMG still use the 12 cylinder engine, but in the next few years, the switch will be made to the V8 twin-turbo engines. While you might have your doubts about the V8 and its power compared to a V12, Mercedes promises that the V8 twin-turbo will be more compact and lighter, adding less weight to the car, producing similar if not better performance with its twin-turbos compared to the V12. Let’s see what the engineers in Stuttgart come up with, it better be good!
(6 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5)
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AutoBild - via AutoBlog
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:42 am
Nice Blog.
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Are they planning for a complete discontinouation ? I mean are they still going to use V12’s on supercars and some sportcars ? and what about AMG’s V12 cars ?
December 4th, 2008 at 10:13 am
It seems like they will be phasing it our slowly. Autobild says that the planned development of a new V12 engine has been stopped (the M 295 series). Instead they will rework the current V12 engine (M 275 series) for use on current models. The decision was made to accommodate a V8 twin-turbo, which is said to have even more advantages than the V12.
Remember, size doesn’t always matter, it’s how you use it
December 7th, 2008 at 1:54 am
to be honest, I’ve been a fan of Mercedes’ V12s, so somehow I’m with this decicion. However, I still don’t want to see the other manufacturers, such as BMW and Audi, developing V12s and Mercedes out of this game. There should be at least limited production of V12s in Maybach and some Mercedes cars.