W18
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The only W18 engines built to date powered the Bugatti EB 118, Bugatti EB 218 and Bugatti EB 18/3 Veyron concept cars in the late 1990s. This engine featured three banks of six cylinders set 60 degrees apart.
The and Bugatti EB 18/4 Veyron concept featured a variation of this engine - it retained the 18 cylinders but instead of three cylinder banks, it had four. This confused many who saw the specification in print at motor shows since 18 isn't evenly divisible by four. The design was loosely based on the concept Volkswagen used for its V5 engines which had one bank with three cylinders and one band with only two. Essentially the four-bank W18 was two V9 engines (one bank of five cylinders and one band of four) mated to a common crankshaft. Ultimately the design proved to be impractical and the W16 (four banks of four cylinders) layout was adopted in the next generation of the concept, the Bugatti EB 16/4 Veyron.
Related topics
See also
External links
- Volkswagen's VR6 and W-engines (http://www.autozine.org/technical_school/engine/tech_engine_packaging.htm#W18)
- Bugatti's official site (http://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/flash/index.html?langString=en)