FIAT S76 has the Largest Car Engine Ever Built

There was a time when Fiat built giants, like FIAT S76 nicknamed ‘The Beast of Turin’ – a 28.5L racer designed to break a speed record. In this prewar period, the thinking was that ‘bigger displacement is best’ and there was an amazing range of monstrous machines. At 28.5 liter and only 4 cylinders, the FIAT S76 has the largest car engine ever built.

Fittingly nicknamed ‘The Beast Of Turin’, the S76 was built in 1910/11 with the express intention of beating the land speed record, held at the time by Blitzen-Benz. As well as the sort of engine displacement normally reserved for supertankers, it boasted – by the standards of the day – some pretty cutting-edge hardware: four valves per cylinder, multi-spark and overhead cam technology helping it produce something in the region of 300hp. You may think that 300hp isn’t great for such a big engine – but it has more torque than a Bugatti Veyron! Moreover, don’t forget that we are talking about car from 1910.

Only two S76s were ever built. It took enthusiast engineer Duncan Pittaway ten years to restore this unique record car using the surviving example’s chassis and the 28.5-liter engine sourced from the first prototype dismantled by Fiat in order to protect its innovations right after its Belgian run in 1911.

There are 2 videos below. The first video shows the first time the engine had started in over 100 years, and in the second one you can watch full functional ‘The Beast of Turin’ driving on the street.