Credit: Hugh Llewelyn via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Credit: Hugh Llewelyn via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
In the past, everyone was focused on producing the best engines in F1, but did anyone tried V16 engine? The answer is yes.
We know that F1 has always been a playground for radican engineering, a sport where bold ideas can either define an era or sink without a trace.
Among the most daring of these ideas was the attempt to squeeze sixteen cylinders into a F1 car, it sound unthinkable today but in the early days of F1, British Racing Motors (BRM) decided that if twelve cylinders were good, then sisteen would surely be better!
What followed was a story of breathtaking ambition, screaming horsepower and heartbreak in equal measure.
The Dream of BRM’s V16 engine
When BRM unveiled the Type 15 V16 engine in 1950, it was a marvel engineering, think of it, 75 years ago, a team was able to produce the V16 engine, so did it worked? Let’s explore below.
1.5-liter supercharged V16 engine, capable of revving beyond 12,000 RPM and producing well over 600 horsepower, for comparison, most of its rival at the time struggled to reach half of that output!
On paper, BRM had built a monster that should have dominated the new F1 world championship.
The car’s first outings seemed to justify the hype, at Goodwood, the V16 roared to victory in non-championship races, leaving specatators astonished by both its pace and its ear-splitting soundtrack.
Many who heard it still describe it as the most dramatic noise in racing history, a shriek so loud and so high-pitched that it seemed almost mechanical music, for a brief moment, it looked like BRM had written the rules and everyone expected them to be dominant.
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The Harsh Reality
Unfortunately, F1 history is full of brilliant ideas that worked in theory but collapsed in practice, and the V16 fell firmly into that category.
So why? It was the reliability, the engine’s intricate design was too advanced for its time and the car was plagued with constant failures, cracked cylinder linders, leaking water pumps and pistons that would literaly melt under stress.
The team spent more hours repairing than racing, and drivers often found themselves stranded before they could complete a race distance.
Even when the engine ran properly, it was difficult to handle, the power band was razor thin, arriving only at extremely high revs, which meant drivers had to keep the car screaming just to extract performance.
On tight or technical tracks, the car was undriveable, instead of rewriting F1 history, the BRM V16 engine became a cautionary tale about the dangers of letting ambition overrun practicality.
Why It Failed
Several factors doomed the project, the complexity of the engine created endless reliability problems.
Development delays meant the car was late onto the grid, robbing it of valuable testing time, to make matters worse, F1 regulations soon shifted, leaving the V16 engine concept obsolete only after few seasons, in short, BRM had invested in the wrong idea at the wrong time.
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Who Else Tried a V16?
No other team attempted a V16 engine, only BRM. The cost, complexity and fragility were simply too high for the returns it offered.
The only famous examples of V16 racing engines came earlier, when Auto Union campaigned their V16-powered machines in the ’30s Grand Prix era.
The H16 Experiment
BRM, however, were not ready to give up on big ideas, in the ’60s, they returned with the H16 engine, effectively two flat-8 engines stacked together, it was another marvel of creativity but once again fell victim to weight, complexity and reliability issues.
The H16 produced huge power, but the vibration and mechanical strain made it impractical, its only triumph came in 1966, when Jim Clark drove a Lotus powered by H16 to victory at the United States GP.
Beyond that single shinning moment, the H16 was another engineering dead-end.
Why They Never Tried Again
It was clear, more cylinders did not automatically meant better results, as F1 moved forward, the trend shifted toward smaller, lighter and more efficient engines.
V8, V10s and eventually turbocharged six-cylinder units proved far more effective than unwiedly sixteen cylinder monsters.
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What can we say more?
Despite its failures, the BRM V16 is remembered fondly by enthusiasts, it remains one of the most fascinating ‘WHAT IF’ stories in F1 history, it is ear-splitting scream is still celebrated whenever restored examples are run at historic events, where crowds gather just to hear the engine’s otherwordly howl.
