Does the name Joseph Siwek ring a bell? No? He wasn’t a famous designer like Giorgetto Giugiaro or a well-known executive like Bob Lutz. He was just an ordinary Oldsmobile customer who took delivery of a new Delta 88 a bit over 40 years ago. Yet he ended up being responsible for a phrase that you’ve probably read hundreds of times without ever giving it a moment’s thought.

That phrase usually goes something like this: “Some Oldsmobiles are equipped with engines produced by other GM divisions,” although now that Oldsmobile is gone you’re more likely to read “Cadillac” or “GMC” in its place. That phrase was inspired by a massive class-action lawsuit and a series of million-dollar settlements that all started in a very unlikely place: The Oldsmobile dealership that didn’t have any oil filters for Joseph Siwek’s Delta 88, because it had a Chevy small-block under the hood instead of an Oldsmobile Rocket V8.

It sounds crazy nowadays, but there really was a time when people expected that their new Oldsmobile would have an Oldsmobile engine and not a General Motors one. Imagine going into a Lexus dealership and demanding that your new IS350 have a “Lexus V6” instead of a Toyota global unit! That kind of attitude is roughly as antiquated as wearing spats or graduating from college without a Maybach’s worth of student debt. We’re all far too sophisticated to insist that our cars be powered by the name on the fender.

Or are we? Today’s new-car buyers put up with all sorts of stupidity with regards to the power unit in their cars, most particularly with regards to all the “x300” and “x30” cars out there that are really motivated by a “200” or “20” two-liter turbocharged inline-four. The mostly unheralded and unobserved process by which automakers have swapped out six-cylinder and even eight-cylinder engines for these junky little four-bangers has got to be one of the biggest unpleasantries ever perpetrated on the buying public. They might make the same kind of numbers on a dyno or in a 0-60 sprint, but that’s like saying a Thomas Kinkade painting covers the same amount of wall space as the Mona Lisa. Quite a bit of character, charm, and enjoyment has been lost in the wholesale rush to the two-liter turbo four.

Don’t believe the "30" in this 530i’s badge. It’s powered by a two-liter four-cylinder. BMW

Never in automotive history have we encountered such a miserably bland bit of bandwagon-jumping. Everything from a Hyundai SUV to a sleek BMW 5-Series sedan seems to be driven by the same basic power unit, making the same numbers in the same clattering, rattling, bone-shaking fashion.

As automotive journalists, we are constantly told that each automaker brings something special to their 2.0T, and we dutifully quote those claims in the magazines and blogs, but I’d be lying if I told you that I could discern a huge amount of difference between, say, the turbo four-cylinder in the Volvo S90 and the one in the Alfa-Romeo Giulia Ti.

They all come on strong from low revs, they all seem to have a metric ton of flywheel, and they all run out of puff somewhere between five and six thousand on the tach. Most of them sound like tractor-trailers at idle thanks to the direct injection, and most of them emit a kind of pained moan at full throttle, like the sullen spouse who really doesn’t want to help carry in the groceries from the car but who will nonetheless belatedly comply with your demands in the most aggrieved fashion possible.

It’s no wonder that the smart set in the automotive world thinks electric cars will seamlessly replace internal combustion engines in the near future, because these two-liters are pretty much electric motors in behavior. They are happiest when they are maximizing torque at part-throttle and feeble when it’s time to really let rip. Imagine the manic rush to redline of a modern 180-horsepower literbike. Now imagine the exact opposite. That’s what you are getting for your 30 or 40 or 60 thousand dollars nowadays.



Did I mention that the fuel economy will be mediocre? Chances are you already knew that. I’ve yet to drive a two-liter “upscale” car that could match my wife’s C5 Corvette for highway sipping. Heck, most of them can’t even do it in the city. When your 1998cc wonder-motor with variable valve timing, direct injection, and super-trick turbo tech drinks more gas than a 5.7-liter V-8 with long-tube headers, then, my friend, you’ve got problems.

The modern small-displacement turbo-four is such a lousy idea, and it is so poorly implemented across the board, that it tends to blur the distinction between brands in much the same way that the smog-strangled Olds 307 wasn’t demonstrably superior to a smog-strangled Chevy 305 back in 1977. So why not take that old General Motors idea a bit further? Why not settle on a single spec design for two-liter turbos that can be produced identically by every automaker, the same way that the AK-47 ended up being made everywhere from China to Finland to Brazil?

This idea of a “spec engine” isn’t as unusual as it sounds

The advantages are obvious. You would have tremendous economies of scale, making these (already cheap) engines even cheaper to manufacture. Servicing would become easier, particularly at independent shops. Mllions of dollars would be saved in emissions testing and compliance with government regulations. Reliability would increase because you would have more eyes on the problems.

This idea of a “spec engine” isn’t as unusual as it sounds. It’s been done in Formula One for years; there are fewer engine makers than there are constructors. It was done by a European manufacturing consortium with the so-called “PRV” V6. For many years, the optional engine in pretty much every K-car variant was a 2.6-liter Mitsubishi four-cylinder that also saw duty in a wide variety of JDM automobiles. I’d be foolish not to mention the small-block Chevrolet V8, which vanquished similar products from Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and (eventually) Cadillac.

There’s precedent in other drivetrain components as well. The GM Turbo-Hydra-Matic three-speed transmission saw wide service in non-GM products, including but not limited to the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. Nobody ever questioned Rolls-Royce’s claim to be an independent automaker as a result.

Any sensible person can see the merit of this idea. There are really only two questions left to answer. The first one: Which of the existing 2.0T engines to choose? My more engineering-oriented autowriter friends tell me that Mercedes-Benz probably makes the best of the bunch, so let’s use that one. It helps that Mercedes has experience as a “spec engine” provider thanks to F1.

The more important question: What to do with all the money and effort that you save by going to a common engine? The natural inclination of the automakers would no doubt be to use it for executive bonuses or virtue-signaling “greenwashing” programs, but I have a better idea. Each automaker should take their two-liter bonus cash and devote it exclusively to the creation of new, better, and deliberately characterful alternatives to the 2.0T. I don’t care if it’s a three-cylinder supercharged boxer or an inline five or a Wankel or a Chrysler-style turbine or even just a nice old inline-six. Let’s bring the era of the two-liter turbo to an end in the most exciting and diverse manner possible.

Ten years from now, we should be once again enjoying a broad spectrum of unique and characterful engines, each one perfectly matched to the mission of the brand and the expectations of the customer. Bimmers with slick sixes, Benzes with deep-chested V8s, Hondas that rev to nine grand and Toyotas that run to 500,000 miles. When you buy a new car, you should be able to rest secure in the knowledge that you’re going to get a unique and special set of sensations and experiences from whatever’s under the hood. It’s only fair. And I think Joseph Siwek, bless him, would have wanted it that way.

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