Originally Posted by LA Boy

With the approach of the new CAFE standards most of us have been saying that the direction to go in the future for high performance sports cars is turbocharged small displacement engines in a light car. Us Porsche fans also know that Porsche is a master of this sort of configuration. I just didn't realize how masterful, and to see this you need to look to the past. Us long-term fans remember how Porsche dominated Formula 1 racing back in the early to mid 80's with the McLaren cars powered by the TAG motor engineered by Porsche. Porsche built a marvelous 1.5 litre V-6 pumping out prodigeous amounts of horsepower and no one else could keep up! I always wondered just how powerful that little engine was and I just found out. If you look at the pictures from the Charlotte Porsche Parade you will see one of a 1987 McLaren TAG-Porsche with a placard in front of it. I enlarged the picture on my computer and you can actually make out the printing on the placard, which indicates that in qualifying trim that little 1.5 litre motor could develop 1060 horsepower: an amazing 706 hp per litre! All I can say is, please Porsche, build us a street motor like that with even half the power and stick it in a lightweight (read Club Sport) Cayman! I also remember reading somewhere that the TAG-Porsche motor was the first to be built from the ground up as a turbocharged motor. Prior to that motor, if you wanted to go turbocharged, you took a normally aspirated motor and bolted on a turbocharger. This was the first to be built from the very beginning as a turbocharged motor. Porsche has done some amazing things in it's 60 year history, and the TAG-Porsche motor is one of the most memorable!