International Engine of the Year Results.

What a year it has been for the Fiat Group. With the Italians already having secured Best Performance Engine for Ferrari, and no less than three Awards for the TwinAir, everybody’s favourite two-cylinder turbo has now scooped the big one for the engineers in Turin, marking a first for Fiat. The 2011 International Engine of the Year is the 875cc Fiat TwinAir powertrain.

It’s only the second time – the first was Toyota’s 1-litre Yaris VVT-i back in 1999 – that a sub-1-litre engine has taken the big prize. But given how innovative this powerplant is, the result should come as no surprise. Who better to describe this frugal, fun motor than its program manager, Gianni Mastrangelo: “We wanted an engine to fully demonstrate our downsizing capabilities and we needed a displacement that could fully exploit our MultiAir system,” he explains. “We concluded that a two-cylinder, 875cc setup with a turbo was capable of realising all our development targets.”

The TwinAir was designed from a blank sheet of paper. Indeed, Mastrangelo says that only a few screws were carried over from the FIRE 1.2-litre four-cylinder. “There were lots of problems to be solved during this project, keeping in mind that this architecture was new,” he recalls. “The most important challenge to overcome was integrating the MultiAir system within the two-cylinder activation unit. Plus, we wanted the NVH of the TwinAir to be at least as good as that of a four-cylinder engine.”

That Mastrangelo’s team more than succeeded in meeting its goals is borne out in TwinAir’s performance at this year’s awards. A crushing points victory among the European judges laid the foundation for its triumph in the overall International Engine of the Year voting. A solid endorsement from judges elsewhere in the world then enabled it to hold off the ever-popular Volkswagen TSI Twincharger, bidding for a third straight win. Congratulations, Fiat!


The winners are...

• Best New Engine of the Year- Fiat 875cc TwinAir
• Green Engine of the Year- Fiat 875cc TwinAir
• Best Performance Engine- Ferrari 4.5-litre V8
• Sub 1-litre- Fiat 875cc TwinAir
• 1-litre to 1.4-litre- Volkswagen 1.4-litre TSI Twincharger
• 1.4-litre to 1.8-litre- BMW 1.6-litre turbo
• 1.8-litre to 2-litre- BMW 2-litre twin-turbo diesel
• 2-litre to 2.5-litre- Audi 2.5-litre turbo
• 2.5-litre to 3-litre- BMW 3-litre DI Twin-Turbo
• 3-litre to 4-litre- BMW 4-litre V8
• Above 4-litre- Ferrari 4.5-litre V8


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Joe_Limon - 5/18/2011 2:12:49 PM

-7 Boost

Whaaat? the LFA's V10 not in here??? lol!

LexSucks - 5/18/2011 5:00:34 PM

+2 Boost

The LF-A's engine is in a class by itself.

_43LE - 5/20/2011 9:10:03 AM

+1 Boost

Yes, because people of European descent are so much superior to everyone else, right? That's what you want people to believe...keep dreaming.

Joe_Limon - 5/20/2011 4:29:00 PM

+1 Boost

Sportyturbo. Are you entirely lacking in couth? You are almost hyproctical in your ignorance. The very fact that you have posted an argument about geographical superiority shows that you know about the disparity between nations, however the manner in which you have presented yourself shows you to be an elitist, or to every other person who does not share in your elitism, a pretentious snob, or at the very least, someone who aspires to be a pretentious snob.

If you need a simile to help you understand the moral codes you have broken have these two.

You're acting like a rich person, who spits in the faces of beggers because they don't have your money. Or, you're like a person who just won a race turned around and gave everyone behind him the finger.

MercedesSL - 5/18/2011 4:03:18 PM

+2 Boost

Fiat/Ferrari- 5 category wins
BMW- 4 category wins
VW/Audi- 2 category wins.

LexSucks - 5/18/2011 4:59:51 PM

+1 Boost

Not a single Lexus or Toyota? Why?

outsider - 5/19/2011 2:10:14 AM

+4 Boost

The judges forget some elements at the evaluation:
- All winners polluting NOx like a hell. NOx is the most harmfull emission.
- Toyota 1.8 hybrid were 2nd in the grean engine category, because it is "old" and the Fiat twinair is "new"
- They do not consider the complexity and the reliability. The ToyLex hybrids contain much less part than any other "winners".
The real value of these powertrain show by JD Power and reliability statistics. Please check the winners and the problems. There are plenty of electric, fine mechanics and turbo failures. And the judges evaluated the engines by electric systems, fine mechanics (Fiat, BMW) and turbo solutions (BMW, VW).
Sorry Engine of the year gentlemen, your opinions born at desk, but the real life is completely different. The people needs are simple (not complex), reliable and economical engines. Currently only ToLex hybrid powertrain fulfil these requirements.

Willis - 5/19/2011 10:23:01 AM

+1 Boost

Oh cut the bullshit about Toyota/Lexus engines being so reliable. There isn't a more overrated and overhyped brand out there are the moment than Toyota and their expensive Lexus counterparts.

Someone is just pissed that their overrated Yaris engine didn't make the list.

Joe_Limon - 5/19/2011 10:59:47 AM

+1 Boost

Taken from their website. Cut the crap about NOx.

"Green Engine of the Year: To qualify for inclusion in this category, an engine must have been housed in a passenger car that was on sale in more than one country as of May 2011, and have been designed with fuel economy as a priority, as well as employ intelligent technologies and engine subsystems to reduce all types of emissions, including particulate matter and NOx."

Rectifier - 5/19/2011 5:32:26 PM

+1 Boost

Yeah, these awards are absolute joke.

NEDC Emissions:
Fiat 500 TwinAir - 95 g/km CO2, 419 mg/km CO, 34 mg/km NOx
Prius - 89 g/km CO2, 258 mg/km CO, 6 mg/km NOx.

Not to mention the Prius is about 3 times bigger car..

M5twinturbo - 5/19/2011 11:56:45 AM

+2 Boost

BMW has had the 2.5-3 and the 3-4 liter class on lockdown for the past decade.

94geo - 5/19/2011 12:06:57 PM

+2 Boost

BMW was the big winner again, taking four categories with four different engines!

AdmiralT20 - 5/20/2011 1:05:14 AM

+2 Boost

I think the V-10 from the LF-A is the best production engine in the planet- too bad it is not included in the list.