#Engines

When it was rumors and innuendo, when it was delayed, when it was confirmed but unattainable, when it was launched, when it was actually under the hood of a vehicle we could drive on this continent, we’ve covered the story of Mazda’s diesel engine.

It’s a 2.2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder with a measly 168 horsepower but a stirring 290 lb-ft of stump-pulling torque. It resides not in the Mazda 6 for which it was originally intended but rather the highly acclaimed Mazda CX-5. It’s available only in the CX-5’s top-spec Signature trim, and only then at a $4,110 premium that drives the price up to an eye-watering $41,000. Its fuel economy gains are so minimal that the economic case for the CX-5 diesel is nonexistent.

And after one model year and just enough demand to help (in some small way) propel the CX-5 to yet another record sales year, the Mazda CX-5 diesel is missing. Truant. Unaccounted for.

Moreover, there’s no timetable for the CX-5 diesel’s return.

Given the avalanche of new domestic pickups smothering the American marketplace over the past couple of years, you’d be forgiven for forgetting about the Toyota Tundra, last revamped during the latter part of the Bush administration.

And yet, after Ford comes out with a new F-150 later this year and Nissan gets its midsize offering in order, there’ll be a new full-sizer from Toyota.

Turning the five-door Impreza into the lifted Crosstrek was a brilliant bit of strategy for Subaru. Sales of the jacked compact soared following its late-2012 release, rising year after year until 2018, where it managed 144,384 U.S. sales.

While the model slipped last year, Subaru is not content to leave things be. Later this year, the automaker will answer a long-standing cry from Subaru loyalists and endow the Crosstrek with moar power.

It started with a quip delivered in the TTAC chatroom, in which yours truly equated his computer’s speed to that of a base Chevy S-10. Naturally, any mention of low-rent vehicles from the 1980s and ’90s sent the crew into a frenzy of nostalgia.

Seems the long-gone crop of compact General Motors pickups went through a number of entry-level mills before settling on the 2.2-liter unit that carried penny-pinching buyers through the model’s second generation. Which leads us to the question: What, in your opinion, is the worst four-banger fielded by an American automaker since 1980?

The road to America is often a long one, and the 2.2-liter diesel four-cylinder that finally set up shop in the Mazda CX-5 last year took a Donner Party-like detour after leaving Japan.

The Skyactiv-D engine was over half a decade late in arriving on these shores, and when it finally did — cleared by the EPA after certain modifications — journalists were underwhelmed by its power and economy. Now, it’s the midsize Mazda 6’s turn to try ditching gasoline. Will anyone be in line to greet it?

The 2020 Nissan Frontier unveiled ahead of the Chicago Auto Show Wednesday night looks an awful lot like a 2019 model, to say nothing of the fourteen years of Frontiers that came before, but there’s something new lurking under the hood.

In an unusual move, Nissan has decided to debut the powertrain of the Frontier’s long-awaited midsize successor in the newest current-generation model. The last current-gen model, to put it another way.

With the new engine upgrade comes a considerable boost in horsepower and four additional forward gears.

It seems Dodge, the most flag-wavingly patriotic of all domestic brands, may have something fearsome in store for its aging Durango SUV.

Amid a flurry of Super Bowl ad spots Sunday night, Dodge offered up an orgy of tire-smoking horsepower and Vin Diesel, no doubt prompting its viewership to immediately envision themselves tearing up the local soccer field under the cover of darkness. But did it also offer up a clue?

Our speculation was at least half correct. The upcoming Genesis GV80 crossover will indeed boast an uplevel four-cylinder base engine, the premium marque revealed Tuesday night, but the most potent of the anticipated powerplants will see a boost in displacement.

Genesis filled in the blanks at an event in Miami, saying its first crossover model will make use of an engine bound for the Hyundai Sonata N-Line and an upgrade mill with more horsepower than before.

This is a tidbit we certainly hope is true. After Cadillac was forced on the defensive for debuting a V-badged CT5 sedan widely seen as lacking in the power department, word comes that a wilder variant with a very familiar heart is just around the corner.

The brand is expected to stage a return of the powerplant that made the new model’s CTS-V predecessor great.

While other manufacturers are downsizing engines and sticking turbos anywhere they’ll fit, Mazda has attempted to maintain a home for naturally aspirated motors — engines it believes should be sized appropriately for their intended application. On paper, this appears to be giving the competition an edge. Yet Mazda remains committed to offering the right tool for the job, introducing naturally aspirated Skyactiv engines with unusually high compression ratios. The latest, Skyactiv-X, combines spark-controlled gasoline combustion and compression-ignition diesel tech with a 24-volt mild-hybrid system.

The system delivers 178 horsepower and 164 lb-ft of torque in 2.0-liter guise, plus MPG improvements of up to 20 percent vs the old Skyactiv-G. But there’s a problem. With Mazda attempting to go upmarket, an economy-focused powertrain has to deliver in whatever region it’s sold, and introductory Skyactiv-X units are now viewed as too small for the United States. The result? The technology’s delayed arrival in North America, despite its deployment via the new 2.0 liter found in the 2020 Mazda 3 and CX-30 sold in Japan and Europe.

Retirement stands to become even more special in the just-revealed 2020 Polaris Slingshot. Revamped and re-engined for the coming year, the oddball three-wheeler that may or may not require you to wear a helmet (check local laws) remains a colorful choice for weekend outings.

Forgive the author for noting the age of your average Slingshot driver.

With the new model, buyers receive not just an in-house engine, but a transmission designed to atrophy your left leg muscles.

As everyone in your Twitter feed screams for revolution, evolutionary advancements in technology (and other things) are still proving capable of generating big gains for society. For new vehicle buyers, too.

Jeep’s Wrangler Unlimited EcoDiesel is a case in point. Launched for the 2020 model year, the oil-burning off-roader nets buyers 260 horsepower and a whopping 442 lb-ft of torque — some 307 lb-ft more than a base Wrangler of 30 years ago. Despite boasting only a half-liter of additional displacement and weighing significantly more than a 1990 Iron Duke model, the EcoDiesel returns an extra 8 mpg in combined driving.

Let’s take a look at what the EPA had to say about Jeep’s newest offering.

Introduced last year, Genesis’ third — and newest — model is the G70, a value-packed rear- or all-wheel-drive sports sedan aimed at BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class intenders. We could throw the Jaguar XE in there, too, but no one buys that car.

Like its Kia Stinger platform mate, the G70 kicks up its feet with the help of a base 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four or uplevel 3.3-liter twin-turbo V6. However, on the horizon looms a larger, more potent entry-level powerplant.

General Motors’ 4.2-liter, twin-turbocharged Blackwing V8 made waves when it appeared for the 2019 model year, but its applications have so far been limited to only the most potent versions of the Cadillac CT6 — a sedan whose lifespan may soon come to an end.

Many argued that the Blackwing was unnecessary, as GM already has a long list of engines beginning with “LT” from which to choose. And choose it might, as a new report suggests GM has no use for the Blackwing.

Maserati has something cooking in the kitchen and we’re now getting “spy shots” of its new test mule, though the images were released by the manufacturer’s PR department. While we don’t mind automakers showing a little leg, framing corporate marketing materials as covert information is a trend we wouldn’t mind seeing scaled back. It’s not that we don’t want to see vehicles ahead of their official release — it’s just not a terribly effective ruse.

It did, however, whet our appetite. The camouflaged mule represents a major departure from the brand, looking like a cross between Alfa Romeo’s 4C and the Noble M400. In fact, we’re already presuming the model shares plenty of its DNA with Alfa, as that’s been Fiat Chrysler’s modus operandi for a while. Maserati claims the engine (at least) will be totally new and entirely unique to the brand.