Five honestly crap V8s

Probably the greatest argument for there being replacements for displacement, these V8s will make you re-think your anti-turbo stance.

Look, I like a rumbling V8 roar as much as the next bloke, but these engines are so pathetic in their output it’s almost laughable.

You’ll notice a common theme here. Most pathetic V8s are American and most pathetic V8s also use pushrod heads which means that they can’t ‘breathe’ or ‘flow’ as well as their overhead cam competition.

To be fair, on this list we’re not counting diesels (trucks aren’t meant to have lots of kw, folks) and anything before 1970.

1979 Lincoln Continental 400

You, too, can look this cool.

Why it sucks

The ‘400’ is cubic inches, which in the civilised world, translates to 6.6 litres of engine displacement. All that huge mass gets you a hilariously low 103kW. The engine was a version of the famed Ford Cleveland V8, but just seemingly worse in every way. To boot it was paired with a three-speed automatic in the Continental and was asked to pull well over 2 tonnes of ~~boat~~ car.

1976 Cadillac Eldorado

Why it sucks

America had trouble dealing with the whole ‘oil crisis’ ordeal in the early ‘70s. The seventh-generation Eldorado is the most crystal-clear proof. This car has, wait for it, an 8.2-litre V8. Despite once producing massive power figures and almost going as fast as a six-cylinder BMW, to meet post-crises regulations it got nerfed all the way down to a very sad sounding 142kW/490Nm. Seriously, just put a straight six in or something…

1970 Triumph Stag

Taking the

Why it sucks

Let me paint you a picture. A bunch of blokes without particularly high standards for quality control decide they want to build a V8 sports car. They basically weld two cast-iron four-cylinder engines from the ‘60s together, decide that fuel-injection is too hard and throw together some mis-matching aluminium heads to finish it off. The end result is one of the more famously unreliable V8 engines of all time, that produces a mere 108kW/230Nm. At least it had overhead cams though, right?

1979 Ford Mustang V8

I mean, you can have a V8, it'll just be the worst engine of the lot.

Why it sucks

Ford built a 4.2-litre V8 seemingly so they could stick a ‘V8’ badge on this car. Or perhaps they were just too proud to do away with a V8 until they could work out what to do about inconvenient emissions regulations. Either way, this is the saddest engine on the list. Seriously. We’re talking 89kW here. Ford itself even had four-cylinder engines available with more power. It’s also arguably one of the ugliest Mustangs ever built.

1982 Chevrolet Camaro

Side effects of driving a bad V8 include suddenly sprouting a mustache.

Why it sucks

Hah. Thought your beloved Chevy small-blocks were going to get away unscathed? Think again. This Pre-LS block proudly bolted into the Mustang’s natural rival in the wild had the LG4 version of the ‘305’ eight-cylinder GM engine. It displaced a nice 5.0-litres but managed to extract just 108kW thanks to an emissions-conscious head design. To add insult to injury, between the years of 1979 and 1982 the reliability reputation of this engine took a hit thanks to GM cost-cutting.

Did we miss any crap V8s? Tell us your favourite (least-favourite?) in the comments below.