US Engine of the Year goes to Chevy’s new small-block LS6 V8… there’s just one problem

There’s really only one problem with our engine of the year: its name. The new LS6 in the middle of the updated Corvette has the sort of spec list that the Founding Fathers would’ve enshrined in the Constitution. Replacing the old 6.2-litre displacement is a mighty 6.7-litre motor. If only there was a natty soundbite that summed up how there’s no sufficient substitute for increased engine capacity. Ah well.

It breathes through a ram air intake so the faster you go, the more power you have. Compared to the old 6.2 there’s lighter forged pistons and rods for a revvier, angrier character. The exhaust manifold can withstand higher temperatures. There’s improved cooling and better lubrication.

Yes, this sixth-generation small-block still uses pushrods to activate its valves, but think of it like this: a nuclear reactor’s purpose is still to generate steam. Like Stephenson’s Rocket. Just because an engineering principle remains simple, doesn’t mean it’s not been cranked up until the knob comes off in your hand.

Photography: Mark Riccioni

The LS6 is by no means the wildest engine in the Corvette line-up. It feels like it could and should and wants to rev higher, but then it would encroach into Z06 territory, and besides, it’s built around a melodic cross-plane crank, not the less musical sounding flat-plane cranks that live in racier ‘Vettes.

It’s also free of turbochargers, which are left to the demonic ZR1 and ZR1X rocketships. The 6.7 LS6 you’ll find amid the 535bhp Grand Sport isn’t a ‘power unit’ – it’s an entertainer.

Allied to the central quad pipe exhaust, it emits the sort of V8 bellow we just don’t get from European cars anymore. Now Maserati has quit raucous V8s for downsized bi-turbo V6s with F1-derived pre-ignition and other sci-fi tech that’s deeply uncool to explain, we don’t have a GranTurismo which sounds like it’s gargling bourbon instead of brushing its teeth in the morning. Like the ‘Vette.

The latest Corvette’s powerplant deserves a much more evocative, exciting name than ‘LS6’

Aston Martin’s AMG-derived V8s make a fabulously dirty noise, but they’re muffled by Euro-exhaust litigation and turbos. So is Ferrari’s only current V8, amid the 849 Testarossa. McLaren’s effort in the 750S is a tower of power but has never aroused the hairs on the back of your neck. Maybe singed them occasionally.

The Grand Sport’s V8 isn’t just a fine piece of mechanical engineering – it’s a genuinely refreshing debut in the sports car market. While the European hegemony add e-turbos and axial flux motors, Chevy has delivered a V8 that’s rich in torque, exciting to rev out, gorgeously responsive and goes like stink. A great American engine that deserves its place on the Mount Rushmore of V8s.

Except for the name. The 2,000bhp V8 lunatic that Hennessey straps down in the back of its Venom F5 hypercar is christened ‘Fury’. Dodge recently sold a ‘Hellephant’ crate V8, and the ‘Hellcat’ is a legend in its own lifetime. Ford’s V8 bedrock is the ‘Coyote’, and when Cadillac wanted a psycho V8 in its ultimate tyre-marmalising four-door, it named it the ‘Blackwing’.

The latest Corvette’s powerplant deserves a much more evocative, exciting name than ‘LS6’. Sure, it makes sense to the Chevy spreadsheet-setters, but why not let the naming department go as all-out as the engineers did? Call it the ‘Eaglecry’, the ‘Supersize’, or the ‘Who’re You Callin’ Small-block, Punk?’

That’s the only thing we’d change. The name. This engine is a hoot. This is no place for modesty. Until Chevy comes up with a better title, we’ll lend it one: best engine of the year.