This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. It's brought on by a slight disappointment with everything I've driven lately plus a comment Jeremy Clarkson made on Top Gear absolutely ages ago, to the effect that every car he's owned has had an interesting engine.

How the hell can an engine be interesting? Well, it can.

As a Citroen fan, I have to admit that my favourite manufacturer specialises in style, piss-poor build quality and suspension - not engines.

GS flat-four and Mi16 apart, the engine has generally been the one thing to let my favourite marque down. I'm thinking, for example, of contemporary DS reviews which expressed disappointment at finding clunky old Traction Avant engines in this spangly new car. And guess what the weak point of its successor the CX was? I loved the futurism of that car but my god was the engine a horrible rattly old lump. Even if you didn't know that it had started life under the centrally-hinged bonnet of a Traction Avant, you'd have known there was something amiss on hearing that clatter in 1976.

Since those days of awfulness they've just been average. G's apart, the engines in my Citroens have merely dragged them from place to place; they haven't inspired.

My favourite from my stable of old cars was the Passat GL5, which had the same 5-cylinder 2-litre as the rally-winning Audi coupes of the era. It was fast, responsive, incredibly torquey and - very important this - it made a lovely noise.

By rights I suppose I should be impressed by the 1.4i in my old ZX and my girlfriend's Xsara. Responsive (except for that endemic misfire caused by the crappy stepper motor in the fuel injection) and both quicker and more economical than it has any right to be. Still doesn't sound right though.

The hired Astra I had after the crash was fast and powerful, but you just couldn't hear the thing. The handling hadn't kept up with the NVH protection - you could be in a torque-steering, smoky, sideways powerslide without hearing a thing.

The XM is faster than a 2-litre automatic has any right to be in such a heavy shell (I'm directly comparing to my Rover 2000SC Auto which was as slow as the Royal Mail from 20 years before here) but it just doesn't have enough drama. It doesn't make a nice noise. It just sounds like a big vacuum cleaner that runs on petrol.

Maybe I need more cylinders under there. Or less exhaust. Or something.

All content copyright (c) 1998-2007 Stuart Hedges
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