While Bugatti is busy working on a new V16 engine, its co-parent Porsche seems to be busy working on a new and unique W18 engine. Yes, you read that right, a W18 (yes, eighteen cylinders) engine. Remember, Porsche changed its EV strategy, meaning it has time to do such wild things. While there’s no such official announcement from Porsche, the company filed a patent for a W18 engine in 2024 on behalf of inventors Bevilacqua Vincenzo, Schaal Thomas, and Ruider Norbert, which was published by the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) recently.
Inventions are part of any large organization’s day-to-day operations, as could be the case with this particular invention from Porsche’s inventors. In other words, this patent filing doesn’t necessarily mean that two or four years down the line, you’ll get to see a new hypercar with a W18 engine. If you go into the details of the patent, it mentions the possibility of the engine having different number of cylinders. In other words, using the same concept, Porsche could produce a W9 engine with 3 cylinders per bank, or a W12 engine with 4 cylinders per bank. But either way, notice the difference between this new W engine vs VW Group’s previous W engines?
If you look at the Bentley W12 engine on the left and the Bugatti W16 on the right, you’ll notice that these are not actually W, but rather two narrow V-banks with offset cylinders. To compare, the patent drawings above show an actual W with three cylinder banks with 6 cylinders per bank. The patent also mentions the possibility of a turbocharger per cylinder bank, making the engine tri-turbo.
What are the benefits of this new W design? Well, according to the patent file, the individual intake ports above each cylinder bank help the air flow directly, in a straight line (vertically), as opposed to drawing air in from the side like most engines, resulting in reduced friction and turbulence. Shorter intake paths also help keep the air relatively cooler. Furthermore, there’s a clear separation between the intake and exhaust ports, resulting in cooler air and better engine performance. There are packaging benefits as well. Three cylinder banks mean the engine will be relatively compact.
Yes, there were W12 engines in the distant past with three cylinder banks, but those were aero engines and were not designed with efficiency in mind.
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