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Mercedes-Benz and BMW are both working on three-cylinder petrol engines that will be launched within five years.

All Mercedes up to and including the C-class will be available with a three-cylinder turbocharged unit, while BMW is developing cars to suit the quirky noise, vibration and harshness characteristics of three-pot engines.

“A three-cylinder engine in the C-class is quite conceivable,” said Daimler’s board member in charge of R&D, Dr Thomas Weber.

Daimler strategi...Read the full article

Is there any chance that they are working together on this new engine in a joint partnership?

Seen the Churchill adverts? My old A2 3 pot was great and the Aygo. Great thrum.

" 1.2-litre three-cylinder, so we can have 168bhp with a turbo, plus 150-185lb ft "

Excellent numbers.

it's not just bmw and merc working on the small 3 cyl petrol turbo engines, i know of at least 5 others too.

will see them from 2011 i believe, but i didnt expect those kind of projected power figures, looks promising.

surely this will be used by bmw as a mini cooper engine,  detuned i expect.

 

 

drivenfromtherearplease:

Great thrum.

I agree. When we lived in Italy 7 or 8 years ago we had a 3 cylinder Opel Corsa - 900cc (I think - can't remember) I swear at about 5000rpm it sounded like a baby 911. It also pulled harder and was more economical than it had any right to be. Daihatsu had many models with a three cylinder engine years ago and they were known for their economy power and durability.

As drivenfromtherear has already commented the Aygo / C1 / 107 are fitted with a lovely little three pot that revs nicely and sounds fantastic.

In this application though, it's not particularly refined but when BMW and Merc develop theirs, I sincerely hope they leave in a chunk of the character that makes them so fun.  In an increasingly anodyne main stream car world, this would be a welcome change.

I think its fantastic! and (as I have been mentioning all along....even though I have been slatted)....Hybrids like Prius should only be used in certain size cars....."up to and including C Class" and all without batteries akin to the Prius.

As I have said loads....this is the way it will go, the other things you will see (the right technology) is Chevy Volt type and all electric; as I have said a million times before Toyota did a bad thing with the Hybrid system.....Hybrid on bigger cars in their type form sure, you can even use like the system Merc are developing with BM and GM on the small cars (it makes sense) but what does not make sense is Hybrids on small cars i.e. upto C Class.......its an already outdated system......I am sure someone will "slag" me off again...but what I am saying is right......if you plot out curves on a graph it all points to the same........but anyway.....I think this is superb!...well done Merc!! (BM just copied!!!)

 

hmmm 3 pot has to lack power, dunno why you lot sound chuffed...

Not altogether against the idea but why not reduce the swept volume and retain 4 cylinders - save all that time spent reducing the vibration etc. VW seem to be doing a good job with super/turbo charging. Potentially you could carry this thinking completely the other way and argue a small capacity V6 with twin turbos etc would be interesting - though perhaps torque would suffer.

 Why are people getting so excited about this, it is nothing new?

 DKW used to produce 3 pot, 2 stroke engines when they were owned by Mercedes.

 By the way, a few years ago I remember Autocar running a feature which predicted that 2 strokes were being developed by Jaguar (and others) and these were the future.  Does anyone know what happened to this idea?

The little VW Group three pot is a good engine and I hear good things about the GM one too.

Nice clear post there North, one of your best

 Paragraph 1 you say hybrids should only be used in cars up to C class

Paragraph 2 you say hybrids on small cars up to C class don't make sense!

 I also love the idea of a hybrid without a battery - you'll find that's what the rest of us call a "car"