Will naturally aspirated engines be as popular in the future as manual transmissions are today?
Anyone who follows auction results is always amazed at how much extra is paid for cars when they offer a manual gearbox instead of an automatic or dual-clutch transmission. Connoisseurs obviously want to interact as closely as possible with technology.
Now you could ask yourself whether it will be similar with cars that have a naturally aspirated engine under the hood instead of the turbo four or six-cylinder engines that are common today. Of course, the difference in terms of handling is less than with the gearbox, but the naturally aspirated petrol engine also offers a driving experience and, above all, acoustics that turbo engines can often only convey to a limited extent.
In fact, naturally aspirated sports engines are comparatively rare today; the Porsche Boxster or Cayman GTS 4.0 (Type 718), for example, can still offer something like this, but their days seem to be numbered. And used car prices already show that buyers are craving such a concept.
Fine examples are also the unfortunately unaffordable Lexus LFA or Porsche Carrera GT, but also most Ferrari models up to around the mid-teens of this century. And it is probably no coincidence that turbo technology never really caught on in motorcycles and that there is a modern sports bike from Kawasaki with a four-cylinder engine of just 400 cm3 that can rev to over 15,000 rpm ...
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