Every 50 years - four-cylinder engines in the upper mid-range
07/29/2022
Almost 50 years ago, the magazine "auto motor und sport" carried out a (two-part) comparison testwith well-powered mid-range saloons. The Audi100 GL, the BMW520i , the Mercedes-Benz230/4 , the Peugeot504 TI and the Volvo144 E had to compete.
What the five test subjects had in common was that they all had an in-line four-cylinder engine with a displacement of around two liters under the hood, i.e. not a six-cylinder engine, which was later regarded as the standard, and also not a five-cylinder engine, which was the first to be introduced in the mid-size class a few years later. 10 or 20 years later, people would have been surprised that buyers of these not entirely inexpensive saloons were satisfied with just four cylinders.
In modern times, however, around 50 years after the comparison test, four-cylinder engines are once again the be-all and end-all in mid-range saloons. Today, two-liter displacement has almost become the standard for Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, although hardly any engine can do without a turbocharger.
And with good reason, because where once around 100 hp was enough to set about 1.2 tons in motion, today a brisk 250 hp is the standard to cope with a mass that has now grown to around 1.6 tons. And yes, around DM 14,000 has now become more than EUR 40,000 (the equivalent of around DM 78,000). However, you hear much less of the modern four-cylinder engines in today's cars than in their multi-cylinder predecessors and fuel consumption has also easily halved.
Nevertheless, it is interesting that what was considered outdated in the nineties, namely to compete with four cylinders in the upper middle class, apparently no one cares anymore today, because the four cylinders sell like hotcakes.
P.S. Incidentally, the 1973 comparison test, the second part of which was published in January 1974, was won by the Mercedes-Benz 230/4, if the price was not taken into account. If the new price was also taken into account, then the Audi 100 GL and the Peugeot 504 TI came out ahead of the Swabian.
