Cosworth was bought by Vickers in 1990 then by Audi in 1998. Audi split the Northampton, UK concern into Cosworth Racing and the Cosworth Technology Group, the latter concentrating on road cars. Ford subsequently bought the racing side, which is nowadays in private hands, while the other branch was in 2005 acquired by Mahle. It is nowadays known as Mahle Powertrain and still has its head office in Northampton.

 

Cosworth has not been involved in Formula One since 2013 but more recently produced the naturally aspirated 6.5 litre V12 for the Aston Martin Valkyrie, a road/race car slated to compete at Le Mans in 2025. Since then it has likewise designed, developed and manufactured a 4.0 litre naturally aspirated V12 for Gordon Murray Automotive [GMA] as a completely fresh project. While there are no plans to race that engine it will power a track-only derivative of GMA’s T.50 supercar.

Interestingly there is now another V12 project under development at Cosworth while at the same time Mahle Powertrain is working on a new V12. Neither of those Northampton-born engines is planned as a race unit but it will be no surprise to see one or likely both powering track-only derivatives of the road car they are currently destined for.

 

The Cosworth project is for Bizzarrini, the Italian automotive company founded in 1964 and reborn under new ownership in 2020. Bizzarrini plans a supercar, which will be known as The Giotto and will have its V12 displacing 6626cc in tribute to original founder Giotto Bizzarrini, whose date of birth was June 6 1926. The plan is to start dyno testing next summer.

 

Meantime the Mahle Powertrain project is for Danish supercar company Zenvo, which currently uses V8 engines. However, its forthcoming Aurora model will have a 6.6 litre V12 with four turbochargers mounted within the vee (‘hot side inside’). Not surprisingly the engine will use Mahle’s ‘Jet Ignition’ pre-chamber combustion technology. The Aurora will be a hybrid and dyno runs for its V12 are anticipated for early next year.