One of the things that manufacturers have lost the plot on in recent years is naming their engines. Hell, we told you about one example coming from GM today as they are calling a new turbocharged four banger engine “Tripower”! That makes both our head and gut hurt and frankly we have a lot of head and gut up in here.

Yes, we get the inside “project” names like Coyote, Tiger Shark, Scorpion, and others but the actual branding names of the engines in the cars are horrid (for the few that exist). Ecoboost, Ecotec, Multi-air, and it only gets worse from there.

Back in the day there were Cobra Jets, Thunder Jets, Turbo-Fire, Vigilante, Super Hurricane, Go Devil, and likely 100 others. Often times the names were hilariously overselling the the engines. The Go Devil made 60hp for example but do you know what? That made the names cooler! The Jeep Vigilante V8 with its 250hp update is one of our favorites. It’s like the thing was out fighting crime when it was not helping schlep your canoe to the lake.

So we want you to come up with your picks for the best factory engine names (not code names!) in the history of cars. Can be American, Asian, European, etc. You name them and we’ll see what comes out on top. This is not a deal about horsepower, output, performance or anything else, just straight up creativity and fun. After all, these were just a marketing exercise and it gave an announcer something fun to jabber jaw about in the commercials and something fun for the copywriters to jam into magazine ads.

What Engine In History Has Had The Best Factory Name?

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