The trend of turbos on small engines hasn't been a great success. Far too many failures at low mileage across all brands.

Our Yaris 1.5 is a perfect example of "Keep it Simple Stupid".

105 bhp, no turbo, 60mpg.

A little down the page is an analysis of vehicle registrations by fuel type.

Vehicle licensing statistics: 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Diesel peaked in 2016 at 1.2m vehicles. Now down to ~100k.

Petrol peak predates diesel growth. 2.1m were registered in 2001. Now declined to 0.8m,

Other fuel types in 2022 were 0.7m. I suspect not all were fully electric but probably included some hybrid.

Sales in 2022 were still somewhat constrained by pandemic supply issues. However the overall message is clear.

For me. Peak petrol and satisfaction were.

1. Honda V6 2.7l vitesse.

2 Honda V6 sterling auto followed by a

3. Rover Honda engined 1.6 416 auto and a honda engine 216GT. after that Rover went to the dogs. Never wanted any of the Jags of that era. Had several of the jags for use as freebies when I asked, but put my own money in one, no thank you sir.

I'm surprised that anyone thinks that any cars from the Rover/Honda alliance period represent the peak of anything.

The original 2.5 V6 Honda/Rover was panned by the press for being gutless, no real torque anywhere in the rpm range - a quick capacity increase and retune was needed to make it acceptable.

The Sterling (Rover 800) sold in the USA was an unmitigated disaster

The trend of turbos on small engines hasn't been a great success. Far too many failures at low mileage across all brands.

It is all too easy to get fixated by the two factors, small capacity and turbo, and assume this are the reason for the failures, when they aren't.

The fact they were small capacity and turbocharged is incidental, the reason for the failures are poor design/design flaws/design mistakes, invariably stemming from cutting costs, materials and corners.

Let's not forget, the Japanese have been making reliable small capacity turbos since the 80's at least, and not just for the JDM. While most petrolheads will have heard of the Daihatsu Charade GTti and its 100bhp per litre, that was one of three different 1.0 turbo 3 cyl Charade's being sold in the UK, the others being the diesel and a lower powered petrol. But the previous shape Charade was also sold in the UK as a 1.0 turbo petrol and diesel as early as 1983.

Kei cars in the JDM have also been using turbo's reliably since at least the 90's on engines of no more than 660cc.

Nonsense. Do keep up! The introduction of small turbo engines has been a resounding success worldwide. Here is a piece of news dating back to 2019 about just one example - the 1.2 puretech - of which there are now millions all ove rthe globe. Other manufacturers are also churning them out.

You too John!, see above ;-)

Peak petrol for me though? I'd have to turn to Saab. As an 18 year old with less then a years driving under my belt, getting behind the wheel of Saab turbo's with as much as 195bhp (when I started) was a bit of an eye opener. In term of style, can't really beat the classic shape 900, ideally an early "flat front" T16S. But from behind the wheel, the 9000 with the 2.3 turbo, ideally an "aero" (replaced the Carlsson) which also had the benefit of the finest car seats I've ever sat in.

‘ But from behind the wheel, the 9000 with the 2.3 turbo, ideally an "aero" (replaced the Carlsson) which also had the benefit of the finest car seats I've ever sat in.’ Sorry, going off topic, but I had the pleasure of sitting next to Erik Carlsson in a 900 Turbo around Oulton Park in the mid-80’s. A big bear of a man, he made a very quick lap look absolutely effortless, before demonstrating SAAB’s negative scrub suspension geometry by driving over a tyre knife at speed with both hands raised through the open sunroof….

The boss of the Saab dealer I worked for knew Erik Carlsson personally and he actually opened the dealership!