Just as Chevrolet had a prehistoric V8, so did BMW, with the aluminum-block, 90-degree engine used to power the BMW 502, 503, 507, and 3200 CS. Built from 1954 through 1965, the BMW OHV was available in displacements of 2.6 and 3.2 liters. Maximum horsepower output was 160. V8 fans had to wait nearly 30 years for BMW to return to the V8 layout.

[Wikipedia, Image source: USA Auto Parts]

The Studebaker V8 was manufactured until 1963, with displacements ranging from 232 to 304 cubes. A heavy but reliable powerplant, the Studebaker V8 powered many a daily-driver Commander or Lark… but it goes without saying that we're more interested in the batshit-crazy supercharged versions. The Golden Hawk of 1957-58 got a McCulloch supercharger and churned out an impressive-for-the-time 275 horses. We all know about the Avanti, which got 289 horsepower out of its blown V8, but even cooler would be a factory-installed supercharged R2 in a '63 Lark, an option that meets with our highest approval. How about a 12-second Lark?
[Bill's Stude Page, Image source]

Those of you on the other side of the Atlantic might note that the Kent was installed in plenty of beloved British Ford machinery, including the Anglia and Cortina. In fact, the Kent qualifies for our upcoming Longest-Lived Vehicle Engines Of All Freakin' Time feature, being manufactured from 1959 until the present day. Variations of the Kent (some with overhead-cam heads) were used in cars ranging from the Fiesta to the Lotus Elan to the TVR Vixen.

[Wikipedia , image source: Burton Power]

We love inline-six engines, and Toyota has made some of the best. Oh, sure, BMW made some pretty powerful ones, and Chrysler made one that couldn't be killed, but it's hard to argue with 320 twin-turbocharged factory horsepower out of 3 liters. We North Americans mostly know of this engine via the Supra, but Toyota dropped it in Chasers, Crowns, Soarers, and quite a few other rear-wheel-drive machines. Sadly, the JZ has been retired, leaving the late-70s-vintage G as Toyota's lone I6.
[Wikipedia]

Click on the photo of any engine below to jump to the original post honoring that engine.

Toyota R	Ford Flathead V8	BMW M30
Nissan L	Small-Block Chevrolet V8	Volkswagen Air-Cooled
BMC B Series	Chrysler Slant Six	Rolls-Royce V8
Honda B	GMC Twin Six	Jaguar XK
Pontiac V8	Mazda B	Fiat Twin-Cam
Porsche Flat Six	Offenhauser	Willys Go-Devil
Chrysler LA	Packard Inline 8	Mazda 13B
Crosley COBRA	Volvo Red Block	Subaru EJ
AMC Straight Six	Citroën Type A	Toyota A
Ford Windsor V8	Mercedes-Benz OM617	Nissan SR
Chrysler Trans Four	Chevrolet D V8	Ford Modular
Chrysler A57 Multibank	Ford OHC	Honda D
Buick Nailhead	Buick 215/Rover V8	BMW M10
Volkswagen W	Chrysler IV2220 V16	MEMZ-968
Lotus 900 Series	Ford 385	Mercedes-Benz M100 V8
Chrysler B V8	Toyota M	General Motors LS
Honda F20C	Alfa Romeo Twin Cam	Yamaha SHO V6
BMW M70 V12	Mitsubishi Sirius	Saab H
GM Iron Duke	Coventry Climax FW/FP	Ferrari Dino V6/V8/V12
Ford FE V8	BMC A	Audi 4.2 V8
Big-Block Chevrolet V8	BMW M20	Fiat SOHC
Chrysler Flathead Six	Saab 2-Stroke	Oldsmobile Gen 2 V8
Suzuki G	PRV V6	Cadillac OHV V8
Hudson Six	Nissan VH	Ford Model T
Buick V6	Nissan VG

If you like weird twists and turns in your engine-history plot, you'll like the Buick V6. Buick engineers took their aluminum 215-cube V8, lopped off a couple of cylinders, and cast the shortened block and heads in cast iron. The result displaced 198 cubes and made its debut (as the "Fireball V6") in the 1962 Buick Special. Oldsmobile and Buick dropped the 198 and later 225 into their A-bodies, but The General made the decision to use the Chevrolet I6 250 as their six-banger of choice. The V6 was sold off to… ready for this? Kaiser-Jeep! When those Kenosha swashbucklers at AMC bought Kaiser-Jeep in 1970, the bulletproof AMC Straight Six shoved the Buick aside.
Fast-forward to the dawn of the Malaise Era: "Rat turds!" screamed The General's suits up on the Fourteenth Floor, "We need a V6, like, yesterday! So, all the Buick V6 tooling traveled back from Wisconsin to Detroit and the world was introduced to the 231-cubic-inch "new" Buick V6, which was installed in such stellar machines as the Skyhawk. The funky "odd-fire" crank setup made the engine rough, but reliability was very good (and The General eventually loosened the purse strings enough for his engineers to make a smoother "even-fire" version).
Keep fast-forwarding, and you'll find this engine surviving through the Malaise Era, through the Oliver North Era, and all the way up until the present day. Displacements have come and gone, but the 3800 aka 231 has proven itself to have the real staying power; not only did a turbocharged version power the legendary Buick GNX, but Eaton superchargers started getting bolted on during the 90s. What was the most powerful factory Buick V6? Well, that depends on whether you believe The General's numbers about the GNX! Hate away, you pushrod-phobes, but you're looking at a success story.

[Wikipedia, image source here]

While Nissan continued to build inline sixes well into the current century, the more compact V6 design provided more versatility for front-wheel-drive installations (while allowing for shorter engine compartments in rear-wheel-drive cars) and was built in much larger numbers. Available in displacements of 2.0, 3.0, and 3.3 liters and equipped with single- or double-overhead camshafts, the VG was installed in everything from the Z to the Hardbody truck.

[Wikipedia]

There's no need for all those power-sucking valvetrain parts and wasted piston motions with a two-stroke. Saab built two- and three-cylinder two-strokers during the 1950s and 1960s, and the three-banger was installed in various Saabs (including the 95 and 96) from 1955 through 1966. Thanks to Tanshanomi for the recommendation!
[Wikipedia, The Auto Channel]

The first Chrysler Flathead Six, a 68-horsepower engine displacing 201 cubic inches, appeared in 1924, and it was still being installed in Dodge Power Wagons and military M37 trucks as late as 1968 (the last of the Flathead Six-powered Chrysler cars rolled off the assembly line in 1959). After that, Chrysler kept making the engine for industrial and farm use well into the 1970s. 50 years, or just close to it? We'll need input from you serious vintage Mopar experts to know for sure!
[Wikipedia, Allpar]

Bernice, of the Italian Stallions 24 Hours Of LeMons team (that's her on the left, replacing a head gasket on a Fiat SOHC in the bracing 36° air at Arse Freeze-A-Palooza '08), wants us to know "This FIAT engine often ignored in the US due to its small displacement, regardless it is IMO one of FIAT's best engines from the 1960's. While the FIAT twin cam gets much of the glory and noted attention, this is actually the better of the two in some ways. Designed by Aurelio Lampredi, famed Ferrari engine designer before he went to work for FIAT. He is also the one who designed the FIAT twin cam from this era. Production of this engine ran from 1969 to 2005. By the mid-1980's FIAT produced over 6 million copies with numerous variants."

Originally designed to power the Fiat 128 (which, as we know, Enzo Ferrari chose to use as his daily driver) the Fiat SOHC had a good long run, from 1969 to 1999. In addition to 128s and X1/9s, a version of this engine was used in that Balkan legend, the Yugo (including turbocharged examples). The Ritmo/Strada, Punto, and 127 also had Fiat SOHC power, and a number of Lancia machines were fitted with this iron-block/aluminum-head workhorse as well.

[Mirafiori.com, Wikipedia]

BMW's M30 "Big Six" went into plenty of 5-, 6-, and 7-series BMWs (not to mention the E9), starting in 1968, and did a great job of setting the standard for serious inline-six performance. However, the M20- which debuted in the E12 in 1977- made no apologies for its smaller displacement (though the biggest M20 displaced 2.7 liters versus the smallest M30's 2.5) and enabled legions of dentists, realtors, and small-time cocaine dealers to experience genuine Bavarian-style horsepower at the helms of their E21s, E28s, and E30s. From what we've seen at the 24 Hours Of LeMons, even a 300,000-mile M20 can take days of horrific abuse before giving up (in stark contrast to, say, the more fragile Honda B and D engines). Sadly, Cash For Clunkers no doubt sent many thousands of M20s to BMW Engine Heaven.
[Wikipedia]

This engine was born as the W Series in 1958, with 348 cubes of displacement, a weird combustion-chamber-in-cylinder design, over 650 pounds of mass, and one of the best names ever applied to an engine: Turbo-Thrust! By 1961, the General bored and stroked the W out to 409 cubic inches, dropped it in Bel Airs, Biscaynes, and Impalas, and achieved immortality with the song that might just be the Most Overplayed Car Show Song In All Of Human History:

By 1963, GM had installed some more traditional wedge heads on the W, resulting in the "Mystery Motor" seen with Smokey in the photo above. The 396-cubic-inch street version of the Generation 2 big-block debuted in 1965, a year in which purchasers of full-sized Chevrolets could choose between the 409 and the 396. From that point on, 396s, 427s, and 454s were getting dropped into every tire-charring hoonmobile under the sun, a process that continues today. The 1970 LS6 was rated at 450 horsepower, but that number was just a ruse to fool the insurance companies. The last GM car to get a big-block Chevy from the factory was the 1976 Impala/Caprice with the 454 option; big-block-powered trucks continued to roll off the assembly line until 1995. Nowadays, you can march right into your friendly GM dealership and leave with a 572-cubic-inch monster that makes 520 620 horses on pump gas. It's big, it's heavy, and it's crude, but it gets the job done and keeps going forever.

[Wikipedia. Image source: Hot Rod]

Sure, sure, we could argue the benefits of pushrods versus overhead cams all day- and feel free to do so in the comments, where it's sure to be a battle between engine swappers versus engineering geeks- but the Official Jalopnik Party Line™ holds that all V8s are good, even the Olds 350 Diesel and the Triumph Stag V8 (though we draw the line at the execrable Cadillac V8-6-4, which is sort of an edge-case V8 anyway). Having hooned a couple of Audis powered by this engine (RS4 and R8) around the Infineon track, I can state that revving the absolute piss out of an engine that boasts serious torque (over 300 foot-pounds) along with 414 (or 420 horses) and glorious V8 noise is what it's all about. Variations of the 40-valve Audi V8 engine have found homes in engine compartments all over the VW/Audi product line, in everything from the Tuareg to the C5 RS6, with horsepower ranging from the low 300s to "how much money you got?"
[Wikipedia]

Not only was the A- which was such a frugal engine that it needed but three main bearings instead of the five that squander-prone fools prefer for their four-bangers- built from 1954 through 2000 and installed in millions of Minis, Midgets, Minors and the like, it served as the basis for many of Nissan's engines of the 1950s and 1960s. Available in displacements from 803cc all the way up to 1,275cc, the A put postwar Britain- which was still under food rationing well into the 1950s- on wheels and kept it there into the new millenium, winning plenty of racing glory along the way.
[Wikipedia]

The FE was one of Ford's big sellers, manufactured from 1958 through 1976 and installed in millions of trucks, family sedans, wood-grained wagons, and U-joint-snappin', donuts-in-the-convenience-store-parking-lot Dearborn muscle. Best-known in its 352, 390, and 428 cubic inch incarnations, the FE (the acronym stood for "Ford-Edsel," trivia fans) also came in 332, 360, 361, 406, 410, and 427 cubic inch displacements. You European snobs dismissing the FE as "just another low-tech pushrod V8" can just climb back into your rusty Renault 15s and sputter off in a cloud of indignant oil smoke, because Ford built a SOHC version of the side-oiler 427 that made well over 600 horsepower... which, sadly, was never offered as an optional powerplant on the Country Squire.
[Wikipedia, Image source: SOHC427Ford.com]

The overhead-cam Dino family of engines has been with us since the first version- a 60° V6 displacing 1,984cc- debuted in 1958. Since that time, Ferrari has made the Dino in V6, V8, and V12 versions, with 60° and 65° vee angles, cast iron and aluminum block variations, turbocharged or naturally aspirated, and with single or double overhead camshafts- you name it, they've done it with the Dino. From the Fiat Dino to the Ferrari Enzo and Maserati MC12, the Dino looks to be on a run to challenge such engine lifers as the Toyota R and the small-block Chevrolet in the longevity competition.
[Wikipedia]

Starting in 1953, the Climax firepump engine made its way into vast numbers of European race cars, including the Jalopnik Fantasy Garage-honored Lotus Eleven, but it wasn't just about moving pallets around warehouses and racing in Formulas One And Two. By 1963, the 874cc FWMA version of the Climax became the powerplant of the Rootes Group's answer to the Mini: the Hillman Imp. The twin-cam FP version grew to a massive 2.75 liters of displacement by 1961, and V8 versions won the Formula One World Championship in 1963 and 1965.
[Wikipedia]

Known variously as the Iron Duke, Pontiac 2.5, and Tech IV, this pushrod four was an available powerplant in just about every car and small truck built by Pontiac, Chevrolet, Buick, and Oldsmobile during the Late Malaise Era and beyond. From the Camaro to the Fiero, S-10 to Skyhawk; even some late AMCs got Iron Duke power. The Duke tended to be on the noisy side and was often derided for its behind-the-times cast-iron construction and pushrod valvetrain, but it was compact and reliable- in many cases, the most reliable component in the car- and got the job done.
[Wikipedia]

The H is still being manufactured to this day, serving in the Saab 9-3 and 9-5. That means that the engines that power those two vehicles are not-too-distant relatives of the wonderfully horrible Triumph V8 in the Stag! By the time Saab got around to the H, however, the reliability had been improved by several orders of magnitude over the Triumph four, and nearly 30 (or 40, if you count the B engine) years of front-line service stands as a very impressive engineering achievement. We don't recommend the H as a 24 Hours Of LeMons engine (though the Box Wrench Garage Saab 900 Turbo managed to finish fourth at the Goin' For Broken '09 and fifth at the Altamont '08 race), because of that rod-throwing thing, but it makes for a solid street engine with plenty of turbocharged power potential.
[Wikipedia]

Available in displacements ranging from a gas-sipping 1.6 liters to a torquey 2.4 liters, the most famous of all the 4G6 Sirius engines was the 1,997cc turbocharged 4G63T of rally-dominating Lancer Evolution and Galant VR-4 fame. Variations of the Sirius have been installed in dozens of different Mitsubishi, Chrysler, Hyundai, and Chery vehicles, from the Chariot to the Sonata, and the 4G69 Sirius lives on today in the Eclipse, Outlander, and Galant. That's nearly 30 years, which gives the Sirius an automatic acceptance into the Jalopnik Workhorse Engine Hall-O-Fame™. Thanks to EvoCS for recommending the 4G6!
[Wikipedia; image source: Tampa Racing]