The 10 Biggest Engines Ever Put Into Production Cars (by Displacement)

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Forget land-speed specials, aircraft-engine swaps, and one-off machines that needed a beach, a prayer, and three miles of empty horizon. This is the factory-built version of the big-engine story: real production cars that customers could actually order, however wildly impractical the purchase may have been.

“Production” does not always mean millions built. A Bugatti Royale still counts because Bugatti built it as a road car for customers. A racing special with an engine jammed into a homemade chassis does not. The result is somehow more impressive: these were cars intended to carry people, luggage, opera hats, or at least a very determined driver.

Displacement rules this countdown. Horsepower, torque, speed, and fuel consumption are all welcome side characters, but liters get the lead role.

#10: Cadillac Eldorado — 8.2 Liters

White 1970 Cadillac Eldorado viewed from the side at an outdoor event
The Eldorado hid an 8.2-liter V8 behind styling so crisp it could cut a steak.

Cadillac’s 500-cubic-inch V8 arrived for 1970, and the number alone tells you where GM’s head was. Eight-point-two liters. Five hundred cubic inches. It was fitted to the front-wheel-drive Eldorado and selected big Cadillacs, giving the company the largest engine it ever put into a production passenger car.

White 1970 Cadillac Eldorado two-door hardtop parked at a car show
Cadillac sold 500 cubic inches as a luxury feature, which is exactly the sort of confidence America once had.

In the Eldorado, it made 400 gross horsepower when new. More important, it made torque with the casual confidence of a tugboat. Cadillac was not trying to build a sports car; it was trying to move a huge luxury coupe with the effortlessness of an elevator.

The 500 did that job so well it became the final boss of the traditional American big-block era.

#9: Dodge Viper — 8.4 Liters

Dodge Viper V10 engine in an open engine bay
Ten cylinders, 8.4 liters, and just enough room left for the driver’s optimism.

The Viper began with an 8.0-liter V10, which was already a wonderfully irresponsible amount of engine for a two-seat sports car.

By the time the later Viper reached 8.4 liters, Dodge had created one of the largest engines fitted to a modern production performance car. No hybrid system. No turbochargers. Just displacement, attitude, and a hood long enough to qualify for its own ZIP code.

Red Dodge Viper SRT-10 parked outdoors
The Viper’s hood length was less a styling choice than an engine-storage solution.

Later 8.4-liter Vipers made 640 horsepower, proving that huge displacement did not have to mean lazy luxury cruising.

The Viper was a brute with a gym membership: light on driver aids, heavy on consequences, and still one of the most gloriously unfiltered production cars America ever sold.

#8: Locomobile Model 48 — 8.6 Liters

Exposed six-cylinder Locomobile engine in a museum display
Locomobile’s 8.6-liter six was large enough to make its exhaust plumbing look like architecture.

Locomobile’s Model 48 was built for the kind of customer who considered a chauffeur a sensible operating expense.

By the late 1910s, its T-head inline-six had grown to 525 cubic inches, or 8.6 liters. That is a large engine today. In a car designed before power steering became normal, it was an announcement of social rank.

Close view of a Locomobile Model 48 with its long hood and brass radiator
The Model 48’s hood is long because the engine underneath had no interest in compromise.

The Model 48 remained in production into the 1920s, long after many rivals had downsized or disappeared.

Its straight-six was not built for revs. It was built to pull a large, expensive car with quiet authority. In other words, the Locomobile did not rush. It simply expected the road to clear.

#7: Renault 40CV — 9.1 Liters

Large six-cylinder engine installed in a 1922 Renault 40CV
Renault’s 9.1-liter six needed 54 liters of coolant, because understatement was not on the order sheet.

By 1920, Renault’s flagship 40CV had a 9.1-liter straight-six. It was installed in limousines, landaulets, and touring cars for people who did not regard a five-meter automobile as excessive. This was not a sporting engine in the modern sense. It made its point with vast low-rev thrust and the sort of mechanical gravity that made hills feel like paperwork.

Black 1922 Renault 40CV luxury car viewed from the front
The 40CV was official transport for French presidents, because subtlety can be overrated.

Renault also showed that a giant luxury engine could work hard. A 40CV famously won the 1925 Monte Carlo Rally, while a record version later ran all day at extraordinary speed for the period.

That makes the 40CV more than a rolling mansion. It was a rolling mansion that knew how to hustle.

#6: Thomas Flyer Model 35 — 9.4 Liters

1907 Thomas Flyer displayed in a museum with its large front engine compartment
The Thomas Flyer’s 571-cubic-inch four was a production-car engine before it became a world traveler.

The 1907 Thomas Flyer Model 35 ran a 571.3-cubic-inch four-cylinder engine—about 9.4 liters. Four cylinders sounds manageable until you remember that each cylinder was bigger than the complete engine in plenty of modern compact cars.

It made roughly 60 horsepower, which sounds modest until you picture the long-stroke brass-era hardware doing the work.

Side view of a 1907 Thomas Flyer in a museum
A showroom Thomas Flyer became the car that won the 1908 New York-to-Paris race.

Best of all, this was a normal cataloged production car before it became famous. A freshly built Flyer was taken from the showroom floor, modified for endurance work, and sent into the 1908 New York-to-Paris race. It won.

That gives Thomas a rare claim: one of history’s biggest production engines also carried one of history’s greatest automotive adventures.

#5: Renault Type AR 50CV — 9.5 Liters

Renault 40CV rally car with driver François Repusseau in 1925
Renault kept its giant-six habit alive long enough for the later 40CV to win Monte Carlo.

Before the famous 9.1-liter 40CV came Renault’s even larger Type AR 50CV. Introduced in 1907 and sold through 1909, it used a 9.5-liter straight-six made from three paired cylinder blocks.

Renault’s own history identifies it as the biggest passenger-car engine the company ever built.

The 50CV was priced for the very rich, which is fortunate because it was the sort of car that made fuel, tires, and garage space feel like supporting cast members.

Renault sold only a small number, but it was not a special. It was a factory-built customer car with a 9,500cc engine and a very firm opinion about what luxury should feel like.

#4: Oldsmobile Limited — 11.6 Liters

1910 Oldsmobile Limited advertisement showing the car racing alongside a train
Oldsmobile advertised the Limited’s brute force by showing it beat the 20th Century Limited train.

Oldsmobile’s Limited was the company’s grandest prewar statement, and its six-cylinder engine eventually reached 11,569cc.

That is 11.6 liters in a touring car from a company better remembered for the Curved Dash and later Cutlasses. The Limited was not merely big for Oldsmobile. It was big for practically everybody.

Blue 1910 Oldsmobile Limited touring car displayed at a museum
The Limited looked every inch like a car built to make smaller cars feel self-conscious.

Its most famous publicity stunt involved outrunning the 20th Century Limited train from Albany to New York City. Today, that sounds like a marketing department discovering energy drinks. In 1910, it made the Limited a legend. Its big six had the torque to make a huge touring car feel faster than something with wooden wheels had any right to be.

#3: Bugatti Type 41 Royale — 12.8 Liters

Bugatti Type 41 Royale straight-eight engine on display
Each cylinder in the Royale’s 12.8-liter straight-eight was bigger than many full engines of its day.

The Bugatti Royale was not a record car dressed up for the street. It was a production luxury car built for royalty, industrialists, and people who assumed a normal limousine was somebody else’s problem. Its straight-eight displaced 12,763cc, measured nearly five feet long, and made the engine compartment feel like a separate neighborhood.

Blue and black Bugatti Type 41 Royale displayed in a museum
The Royale was not a luxury car so much as a rolling embassy with headlights.

Ettore Bugatti planned to sell 25 Royales. The Great Depression had other plans, and the final production run stayed in single digits. Still, the Type 41 remains one of the most astonishing production passenger cars ever made. It was 21 feet long, hugely expensive, and powered by an engine that looked capable of moving the museum around it.

#2: Thomas Model K 6-70 — 12.8 Liters

A 1910 Thomas Flyer displayed in the Louwman Museum
Thomas knew a proper luxury car required a bonnet long enough to make a statement before the engine started.

Thomas was not done after the 9.4-liter Flyer. For 1910, it offered the Model K 6-70, whose straight-six displaced 12,847cc. That is just a hair larger than the Bugatti Royale’s eight-cylinder engine, but it arrived nearly two decades earlier. In a world of brass radiators and wooden wheels, Thomas had gone properly enormous.

Boxer Jack Johnson seated in a Thomas Flyer in 1910
Heavyweight champion Jack Johnson understood the appeal of a Thomas Flyer with more engine than etiquette required.

Thomas sold the Model K as a proper luxury automobile: touring cars, limousines, landaulets, and the charmingly named Flyabout. The six made around 70 horsepower, which was enough to move more than two tons of car with a certain calm authority. It was expensive, imposing, and delightfully unashamed of its fuel bill.

#1: Pierce-Arrow Model 66 — 13.5 Liters

Period illustration and specifications for a 1910 Pierce-Arrow Model 66
Five-inch bores and seven-inch strokes added up to the largest production-car engine ever offered.

The all-time production-car heavyweight is the Pierce-Arrow Model 66. By 1913, its T-head inline-six had grown to 824.7 cubic inches, or roughly 13.5 liters. Guinness recognizes that figure as the largest engine capacity fitted to a production car; Peerless and Fageol also used engines of the same monumental size.

Black 1913 Pierce-Arrow Model 66-A-1 seven-passenger touring car in a museum
The Model 66 carried 13.5 liters with the manners of a seven-passenger touring car.

The funniest part is that it made only 66 horsepower. That is not a typo. This engine was not chasing high rpm or four-figure power numbers. It was chasing smoothness, flexibility, and enough low-speed shove to make top gear feel like a lifestyle.

The Model 66 was built from 1910 through 1918, and it remains the king of factory-built cubic inches. It is not a car with a huge engine. It is a huge engine that politely brought along a car.

Image Attributions

#10: Cadillac Eldorado

#9: Dodge Viper

#8: Locomobile Model 48

#7: Renault 40CV

#6: Thomas Flyer Model 35

#5: Renault Type AR 50CV

#4: Oldsmobile Limited

#3: Bugatti Type 41 Royale

#2: Thomas Model K 6-70

#1: Pierce-Arrow Model 66

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