1.6L Porsches Are Coming, Grown Men Shall Cry

All together now: He's got the
whooooole world in his hands!

The world is constantly changing in countless ways; some for the better and some for the worst. For the better? We are getting closer and closer to essentially curing cancer, but even though we haven't reached that stage yet, survival rates are constantly increasing. To see the negative stuff, you only have to take the most minute peak at the car industry...

Even if you aren't a hardcore fan, you'll probably know that all companies are facing serious new regulations to help the trees stay huggable. Regulations aren't a new thing - they've been around for many years - but in the past few years, they have become fierce. Really fierce.


Due to this, there has probably been a lot of head scratching at many HQs by many CEOs. Most of their solutions seem to be downsizing the engines. This is perfectly logical in our everyday motors; your average Joe will not be affected if his 1.6L Golf gets replaced with a 1.4L turbo.

You give this a smaller engine? I shall find you, and I shall kill you.

However, downsizing is not really something you can do if you own a sports car company with a prestigious badge to match. This is why Lamborghini's new Huracan has a naturally aspirated V10, and not some whistling V6 turbo. Lose the V10 and you lose half the appeal the car has.

But here we are in 2014, and not even clever turbo technology can save the company I'm talking about today: Porsche. Arguably, the German giant is hardly manufacturing gas guzzlers when you consider the type of cars they actually produce - the current Boxster will touch 40MPG - but the greenies are obviously still tapping their foot.

THAT COLOUR THOUGH. Yuck.

So earlier this year Porsche announced that they would be bringing four cylinder units to their line-up. And you can just picture all of the petrolheads with their pitchforks and torches, can't you? I must admit, I can include myself in this petrolhead riot, but when I saw the specs, my heart softened. A bit.

Yes calipers, we see you and your redness. 

It's not just a 1.6L unit that'll be coming, a 2L and a 2.5L will be arriving too. All will be flat-fours. The 1.6L will produce 210bhp, the 2L 286bhp and the 2.5L making a very respectable 360bhp. Have you jotted all those figures in your head? Good, because there's more numbers to come.

The daddy of them all... is currently in a recall. 

Thanks to all of these units being turbocharged, they should all produce a very good surge of torque whilst driving. Weirdly, the 1.6 doesn't have a torque figure scribbled next to it yet, but the 2L and the 2.5 come with 295 and 347lb/ft respectively. Those are pretty damn attractive numbers, I'm sure you'll agree.

According to Car Magazine, the 2L and the 2.5L units will make their debut in the Boxster, Cayman and the Cayenne. It is unsure where the 1.6L unit will come in. I'd have some money on the 2.5 making it into the basic 911 models too (shock horror!) based on those power and torque figures.

In the parallel universe, the turbo engines will rev this high

And yet, people will still complain because they are missing two cylinders. Well, let me put it to you this way: the Subaru Impreza WRX and Mitsubishi Evo series both had four cylinder engines with a turbo. And the car community totally hates those two...