Smoothness of V6 compared to S6 engine.

Mmmm. Not sure about that. Cars idle at much the same engine speed, but the noise levels are very different. Valve train clatter a key culprit.

There was a 2 cylinder 2 stroke with a piston supercharger at 90° between the power cylinders. There are also W and some radial triples.

Lots of reading here on consecutive pages

Well I heard a Bentley V12 coupe the other day on M4; it sounded like a thunder boom when he overtook me. Not what you would expect from supposedly the best car in the world.

Yeah, interesting engine that one, but lots of complexity due to balancer shafts. Possibly loss of efficientcy due to all the extra gear? But on the other hand, less internal friction than a 3L V6.

These days... there seems to be a convergence towards the transverse 4, like a natural selection of an engineering solution. In older times there were more interesting variations, some of which died out.

Possibly due to the manufacturing advantages, as the whole drivertrain can be assembled as one modular and compact unit. We were then bombarded with statements that FWD was much much much better than RWD..

Thanks Peter, I had no idea there were radial-powered motorcycles. That Goggomobil is just nuts.

BTW, the rotary engines I referred to were not the Wankel type, they were the same layout as radials but rotated with propeller attached about a fixed crankshaft. A certain WO Bentley designed aluminium versions.

Here's a handful of clues for you...

1. Bentley don't make any V12s, and never have.
2. Many ContiGTs are v8.
3. The owner almost certainly paid (considerably) extra for that exhaust.
4. You're talking about a sports coupe, not a wafty bloaty barge.
5. Stop digging yourself further into a pit of blatantly obvious cluelessness.

W12

Exactly.

And, in the context of the original question, see if you can guess why that might make a substantial difference.

It's going to wobble even with the offset crankpins. They have 12° offset to move the 72° W angle to an effective 60° to get even firing interval. But as it's 2 VR6's it has to have 3(6) crankpins 15° out of line from the other 3(6) to get even firing. So it can't be as perfectly smooth as an inline 6.

The exhaust probably has polite town and I'm an utter cad and bounder (footballer) very loud WOT valve.

Without question, the best engine would be a gas turbine/energy buffer/electric combination.

Far from a silly suggestion.

Was it a V10 TDI, so 5 in line in each bank?

No, it was the pikey-spec 2.5 straight five.

That would have originated with some wanker in a marketing suit getting it wrong.

I read in a book, sometime in 1950's that cars inthe 21'st century would be driven by nuclear power and have a small reactor in the boot. They showed even a picture of a small round thing sticking out...

You mean the Ford Nucleon

LOL, brill. Thanks for pic.

Also a lot here: