Enthusiasts used to say, "there's no replacement for displacement" when it comes to making huge amounts of power in an internal combustion engine. But with the world leaning towards a greener and more carbon-neutral future, car manufacturers had to downsize their engines to pass the modern emission standards. Downsizing usually denotes less power, but that doesn't seem to be the case nowadays, as carmakers devised a great replacement for displacement — turbocharging.It's hard to believe that around 50 years ago, turbocharging was relatively unknown in the motoring world. However, a lot of development has been put into these devices throughout the years, to the point where the notorious turbo lag has been basically eliminated and behave like naturally-aspirated engines. In case you're wondering, these particular cars on our list have taken their rightful place in automotive history books for being instrumental in shaping the world of turbocharged automobiles today.
10 BMW 2002 Turbo
Turbochargers date back to 1905, but it wasn't until the 1970s that carmakers saw the potential of turbos to make cars go fast. In 1973, the BMW 2002 Turbo debuted in the Frankfurt Motor Show, and in the process, became Europe's first mass-produced turbocharged performance car.
Powered by a tried-and-tested 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, the addition of a KKK turbocharger bumped up its power output to 170 hp. Of course, turbo technology in cars was still in its infancy back in those days, so the 2002 Turbo was notorious for its turbo lag. But once it goes past 4,000 rpm, the car springs to life immediately and catch drivers unaware of the sudden thrust. Quite simply, it's the naughtiest BMW ever made.
9 Oldsmobile Jetfire
Europe might have the BMW 2002 Turbo as their first turbocharged passenger car in 1973, but to everyone in the know, the first car ever to get a turbo boost came from America, and it's no other than the Oldsmobile Jetfire. However, it had a fatal flaw, which meant the turbocharged car from 'Murica was short-lived.
First, the good news — the Jetfire's turbocharged 3.5-liter V8 produced 215 hp and had 30% more torque than the naturally-aspirated model. But here's the bad news; it needed a special solution called "rocket fluid" — a mixture of water and methanol to cool down combustion temps and avoid engine knock. This proved to be too much of a hassle for owners and prospective buyers, forcing Oldsmobile to retrofit four-barrel carburetors to fix the problem.
8 Porsche 930 Turbo
Just two years after the BMW 2002 Turbo was born, Stuttgart came up with the Porsche 930 Turbo, and it was with this car where the trend of turbocharging really took off.
Porsche gave big American V8s and Italian V12s a run for their money with the 930 Turbo's performance, especially with the 1984 version, which had 330 hp in a 3,000-lb car. Furthermore, this was the Porsche that demanded a specific handling that not many drivers' could master, which earned it the nickname "Widowmaker".
7 Maserati Biturbo
In 1981, Maserati came up with the world's first twin-turbocharged passenger car and aptly called it the Biturbo. It was the Italian manufacturer's proposed solution to get rid of the pesky turbo lag which troubled the earlier turbocharged cars.
Maserati fitted IHI turbochargers on each bank of the Biturbo's V6 engine, and produced up to 281 hp in the Racing version. While they didn't completely solve the lag problem with their twin-turbo layout, this creation obviously opened up another door of possibilities in making engines produce immense amounts of horsepower using forced induction.
6 Porsche 959
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Well, Maserati proved the use of two turbochargers in one engine was possible, so Porsche was back to the drawing board and set up two turbochargers that operated sequentially. There was one for low RPM mode, and the other one spooling up for high rpm usage. This was first used in the Porsche 959.
Porsche was able to extract 444 hp from the 959's 2.8-liter flat-six twin-turbo unit. Along with their other technological breakthroughs, such as all-wheel-drive and active aerodynamics, the Porsche 959 became the world's fastest production car in 1986 after topping out at 198 mph.
5 Bugatti Veyron
By now, you probably know what the Bugatti Veyron's place in automotive history is — it's the first street-legal production car to breach the 250 mph barrier, or in other terms, go past 400 kilometers per hour.
The Veyron wouldn't have done it in 2005 without the massive propulsion it had — an 8.0-liter W16 engine with four turbos, which officially produced 987 hp. Five years later, the Super Sport version of the Veyron topped out at 267 mph.
4 Audi Quattro
Audi single-handedly changed the world of rallying when the Quattro was introduced in 1980. Since then, apart from the Lancia 037 in 1983, all cars that won the WRC were four-wheel-drive.
This groundbreaking car was powered by a turbocharged 2.1-liter inline-5 engine that produced 197 hp in the road-going version, and up to 592 hp in the rally version during the final days of the Group B era.
3 Mazda RX-7
Just a little bit of clarification regarding this one. The Porsche 959 came out in 1986 with sequential turbos, but only 337 of those were built. This means, the title of the world's first mass-produced sports car with a sequential turbo goes to Japan with the Mazda RX-7.
The RX-7's sequential turbos worked in the same principle as the Porsche 959. However, this time, the turbos are feeding air to a Wankel Rotary engine called the 13B-REW, which produced up to 276 hp from what's basically a 1.3-liter unit.
2 BMW M5 F10
Hot V turbo layouts are the trend nowadays for sports cars such as the Mercedes-AMG GT, where turbochargers are placed between the banks, rather than in the extremities of a V-shaped engine. This brings them much closer to where the combustion is occurring, and offers better engine packaging.
Ferrari introduced this packaging to their F1 program in the early 80s, but it was BMW that first utilized this layout on a road car with the F10 series M5. This first twin-turbo M5 produced up to 591 hp in its 4.4-liter V8 engine on the Competition Package variant.
1 Mercedes-Benz 300SD
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It seems like nowadays, almost all modern diesel engines have a turbocharger fitted on them. While the N/A versus turbo debate is still going on with gasoline engines, the turbo is an undisputed winner when it comes to diesel engines. This is because of its much more profound effects on power and efficiency, especially when combined with common-rail direct injection technology and electronic control.
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This was realized when Mercedes-Benz came up with the first-ever production turbo diesel passenger car in 1978 with the Mercedes-Benz 300SD, which had a 3.0-liter five-cylinder engine with 109 hp, but more importantly, 168 lb-ft of torque.