>Plus there are North American engines that make over
>500lb/ft of torque, find me a euro vehicle with those numbers.

How much is that in Nm (Newton meters)?

Anyway, in Europe it is more important to have a small but efficient engine
that works all right in a town where you have to waste your time in a
traffic jam instead of travelling thousands of miles in a one go with a
constant high speed. But diesel usually have a much higher torque than
petrol car. Mine for example is a 6 cyl. BMW one, is a bit old, but
the 2.5liter turbo diesel have 320Nm. One of my ex-boss had a
Volkswagen Tuareg
with a massive 10 cyl. 5.2 liters diesel engine, that had 320 Hp with 740
Nm! And that one is even was very efficient, travelling at 90Km/h the
consumption was like 10 liters only. I do not know how do they do this, but
it was tested by us, not telling this just reading papers. Another colleague
had a Mitsubishi Carisma GDI, that had a unique engine that is petrol one
but the fuel system is more like a diesel one. With 1.8 liters of engine
they achieved 150Hp and with 90Km/h it needs only 5.5 liters / 100Km. The
torque again is much higher than an ordinary petrol engine and the power is
higher than a diesel one.

About this unique engine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_direct_injection

Tamas
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