Top5 FORD-COSWORTH ENGINES

THE DFV

Cosworth’s original F1 engine, the simple, rugged, 3-litre V8 DFV broke every record in the book. It won more World Championship F1 races than any other power unit (155 official races, and hundreds of non-championship events) and made both Keith Duckworth and Cosworth legendary. Conceived in 1966, first raced in 1967 and still competitive in 1982, it was only matched by a new breed of turbocharged F1 engines which Cosworth hated, and considered to be only quasi-legal.

Ford provided the finance, Lotus the chassis (from the 49) and Jim Clark the victories, but Duckworth provided the genius and original thinking. From 1968, when Ford authorised wider DFV sales to any team, it became the plug-in power plant which anyone with money and suitable skills could slot in to their cars.

Excepting the basic cylinder head layout from the four-cylinder FVA F2 engine of 1966, which was similar, the DFV was unique in every detail. Duckworth always admitted that fuel-injection, four-valves per cylinder, and narrow-angle valve gear geometry had all been used before, but no-one had ever combined them so well and so reliably. Not only that, but the sturdy aluminium block was used as a structural