W12 Engine
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A W12 engine is a twelve-cylinder
piston engine A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common featu ...
where three banks of four cylinders are arranged in a W configuration around a common crankshaft. W12 engines with three banks of four cylinders were used by several aircraft engines from 1917 until the 1930s. A three-bank design was also used for an unsuccessful W12 engine which was intended to compete in Formula One in 1990. W12 engines are less common than V12 engines as only a handful of automobile manufacturers use them. The W12 engine has been produced by the Volkswagen Group since 2001. This four-bank engine – based on two VR6 engines with a common crankshaft – has only been used in flagship high performance car models produced under the
Volkswagen Group Volkswagen AG (), known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The company designs, manufactures and distributes passenger and commercial ...
.


Aircraft engines

The
Napier Lion The Napier Lion is a 12-cylinder, petrol-fueled 'broad arrow' W12 configuration aircraft engine built by D. Napier & Son from 1917 until the 1930s. A number of advanced features made it the most powerful engine of its day and kept it in produ ...
was a three-bank design (also called "broad arrow" design) W12 engine produced in the United Kingdom from 1917 to the late 1930s. It had a capacity of and produced . As well as use in various military and racing airplanes, the Lion was also used in land speed record cars (such as the
Napier-Railton The Napier-Railton is an aero-engined racing car built in 1933, designed by Reid Railton to a commission by John Cobb, and built by Thomson & Taylor. It was driven by Cobb, mainly at the Brooklands race track where it holds the all-time lap ...
and the
Napier-Campbell Blue Bird The Napier-Campbell Blue Bird was a land speed record car driven by Malcolm Campbell. Its designer was C. Amherst Villiers and Campbell's regular mechanic Leo Villa supervised its construction. This was Campbell's first car to use the Napier L ...
) and racing boats (such as the
Miss Britain III ''Miss Britain III'' is a racing power boat designed and built by Hubert Scott-Paine. In 1932, Scott-Paine asked Rolls-Royce for a 'R' engine which had powered the winning entrant in the 1931 Schneider Trophy. He planned to challenge Ga ...
). During the 1920s, the
Farman 12We The Farman 12We was a French 12-cylinder broad arrow configuration aircraft engine that was designed and built by Farman in the early 1920s. Power output was 370  kilowatts (500 hp). Design and development The Farman company develop ...
aircraft engine was produced in France. The 12We produced and was one of the company's best-selling engines in the 1920s. The
Lorraine 12E Courlis The Lorraine 12E Courlis was a W-12 (broad arrow) aero engine produced by the French company Lorraine-Dietrich during the 1920s and 1930s. Variants ;12E: ;12Eb: ;12Ebr: ;12Ed: ;12Edr: ;12Ee: ;12Ew:The standard Eb fitted with a supplementary s ...
is another W12 aircraft engine that was produced in France during the 1920s and 1930s.


Motor racing engines

For the 1990 Formula One season, the Italian team
Life Racing Engines Life was a Formula One constructor from Modena, Italy. The company was named for its founder, Ernesto Vita ("Vita" is Italian for "Life"). Life first emerged on the Formula One scene in 1990, trying to market their unconventional W12 3.5-litre ...
built a three-bank W12 engine with a displacement of . The Life Racing Engine F35 used a central master connecting rod, with a slave rod locating onto each side of the master rod, rather than directly onto the crank pin. This meant that there was no offset between the cylinders, reducing the length of the crankpins. The engine was used in rounds 1 to 12 of the 1990 season, however it was unreliable and lacking in power, and the car failed to pre-qualify for any races. The W12 engine was replaced by a third-party V8 engine after round 12.


Road car engines

The only mass-production W12 engine is the Volkswagen 6.0 WR12 48v, a four-bank design that was first released in 2001. The naturally aspirated variant of the W12 engine has been used in the brands of Audi and Volkswagen. In 2003, a twin-turbocharged version of the W12 engine was produced to be used exclusively in the
Bentley Continental GT The Bentley Continental GT is a grand tourer manufactured and marketed by British automaker Bentley Motors since 2003. It was the first car released by Bentley under Volkswagen AG management, after the company's acquisition in 1998, and the fir ...
and Bentley Flying Spur. The engine is constructed by mating two narrow-angle 15° VR6 engines at an inclined angle of 72°. The narrow angle of each set of cylinders allows just two overhead camshafts to drive each pair of banks, so the W12 engine has the same number of camshafts as a V12 engine. The W12 engine has a very compact design for a 12-cylinder engine, with the overall size of the engine being smaller than Volkswagen's contemporary V8 engine. The first application of the Volkswagen W12 was the 2001
Volkswagen W12 The Volkswagen W12 was a series of concept cars created by Volkswagen Passenger Cars in 1997. The cars have been portrayed in games, such as '' Gran Turismo'', '' Asphalt 8'', '' Asphalt 9'', '' Project Gotham Racing 3'', ''GTI Racing'', ''World ...
, a
mid-engined In automotive engineering, a mid-engine layout describes the placement of an automobile engine in front of the rear-wheel axles, but behind the front axle. History The mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive format can be considered the original layout of ...
concept car which set the 24‑hour world endurance record in 2001 with a distance of and an average speed of . The first production car to use the W12 engine was the 2001 Audi A8 (D2). The succeeding Audi A8 (D3) and Audi A8 (D4) also had the W12 as an upgrade engine only for the long-wheelbase variant, the Audi A8L W12, which was last available in the 2018 model year. The Audi A8L W12 with its all-wheel drive was unique among its German contemporaries, as 12-cylinder rivals from BMW and Mercedes-Benz used V12 engines with rear-wheel drive. Other cars to use the W12 engine are the 2003–present
Bentley Continental GT The Bentley Continental GT is a grand tourer manufactured and marketed by British automaker Bentley Motors since 2003. It was the first car released by Bentley under Volkswagen AG management, after the company's acquisition in 1998, and the fir ...
, 2005-present Bentley Flying Spur, 2015–present
Bentley Bentayga The Bentley Bentayga is a mid-size luxury crossover SUV produced by Bentley Motors since late 2015. It is the first SUV to be produced by the brand. Its body is manufactured at the Volkswagen Zwickau-Mosel Plant in Germany, then painted by Pa ...
, 2004-2011 Volkswagen Phaeton W12 and the 2005-2010 Volkswagen Touareg W12. The engine was also used in the 2006
Spyker C12 La Turbie The Spyker C12 La Turbie is a sports car produced by Dutch automaker Spyker Cars in 2006. The LaTurbie was the first version of the C12 platform, being followed by the C12 Zagato one year later, which featured a unique Zagato Zagato is an indep ...
and 2008
Spyker C12 Zagato The Spyker C12 Zagato is a limited edition, all-aluminium, mid-engine/rear-drive exotic luxury sports car from Dutch automobile manufacturer Spyker. It is based on the C12 platform, alongside the Spyker designed C12 La Turbie which debuted the ...
low-volume sports cars.


References

{{Piston engine configurations Piston engine configurations 12 ru:W-образный двигатель