+1
Especially as we are driving round in a Ford with loads of parts made by other companies

It's not like we're talking about a Corolla engine here I imagine the LFA V10 is every bit as hand-built as an Aston V8 or V12. It's a sophisticated, modern, limited production, and high performance component. Sounds like a good fit to me.

Jet engine?

RR uses BMW engines or is this an old news? I never followed RR so I may be wrong. But if that is true, it is German, not British.

I hope they develop their own engines but nowadays, it's all about outsourcing.

Nah, you're right. I wasn't going to get into that. Outsourcing is outsourcing. Many companies do it, simply because it makes sense to not try and reinvent the wheel.

Pagani has had success with German power, Gumpert has had success as well... Now clearly these are more boutique constructors as opposed to exotic, but same principal.

And I think Lotus using the Toyota engine has lead to an increase in reliability, without sacrificing performance.

RR, the engine company, has absolutely nothing to do with RR, the automobile company, which is owned by BMW.

So the RB199 is indeed as pure RR engine.

Silly... That will be installed at the Aston factory, right under where the ashtrays used to go.

You either get the soul/character thing, or you don't. It isn't logical or rational, but if you feel it, you feel it. Some of us do, some of us clearly don't. Buying an Aston isn't rational or logical, and the experience is all the better for it. The character/soul thing is why I keep some cars for many years, and others just a few.

Cars that originate from different countries have different "feels," different characters. British cars feel different from German cars, which feel different from American cars, which feel different from Japanese cars. German cars feel "teutonic." I didn't come up with that term, but it's widely used, and I agree with it. With few exceptions, Japanese cars leave me cold. British cars don't. I have huge respect for the GT-R, yet absolutely no desire to own one.

The current Aston engines are not simply Ford engines. The V12 is based on the architecture of the Duratec V6, but it is its own engine and it is not shared with anything else. The V8 is neither a Ford engine nor a Jaguar engine. It's based on the Jag block, but the Aston engine is its own. Nothing is interchangeable or shared. In original 4.3L form, the block was cast to the same spec as the Jag's, but it was machined differently -- the two parts are not interchangeable. The 4.7L engine, I believe, is not cast to the same specs. In any event, the crank, rods, pistons, bearings, cams, heads, rings, valves, heads, etc. are all unique to Aston Martin. That's enough for me to consider it an Aston Martin engine.

One of the reasons that a Bentley Conti doesn't make me want it is because it's Audi/VW underneath. Great car, but it doesn't have the magic, at least not for me. A Mulsanne, though, that's the real thing.

I suppose that if Aston did the same thing with a Toyota (or M-B) engine as the starting point but the end result was as far removed from the Toyota starting point as the current engines are from the Ford or Jag, I'd be okay with that.

This is a very interesting observation.

The McLaren F1 outsourced its engine supply to BMW. Pagani outsources to Mercedes. Maserati outsources to Ferrari. Why is Toyota inferior to BMW or Mercedes?

Personally, I think that Aston Martin should get their engines from (or designed by) McLaren. Probably more expensive than other solutions.

Mercedes though would seem to be the easy fit.

Can Aston Martin go on as they are though? The technology bar is ever higher.

See post above yours - Japanese engines have no soul. Mercedes, apparently, can. Either you get it, or you don't.

There is an interesting prejudicial elitism going on here. Entertaining...

This talk about soul is ridiculous. I sorta understand it though.
Just like the human heart, the car engine takes in air, pumps fluid and produces motion. This could equate to a soul and since japanese engines work the same as any other, one could easily say it has as much soul as any other engine.

That's blatantly untrue. I NEVER said anything about "better." I've repeatedly said Toyota makes great engines. It has nothing to do with elitism, it has to do with whether the engine would suit the car. IMO, it wouldn't. Japanese cars and British cars have very different characters, but you'd have to understand character to understand that...

No, you don't.

Aston has a very long history of building its own fantastic engines, and those engines are a major part of the cars' appeal (and yes, character). No part of a car gives that car its "personality" more than its engine, IMO.

McLaren never built its own engines, so it looked for someone who would do it -- to McLaren's own very specific specs. McLaren didn't just adopt a BMW engine, and no other car uses the McLaren F1's BMW V12. Now, of course, McLaren does have its own engine, and went to Riccardo to get it.

Pagani -- same idea. Obviously, Pagani is a new (relatively) company and never built its own engines. So, they went to AMG and had AMG built them a very specific engine for their specific use. It's not just the engine out of an SL63, SLS, etc. dropped in the back of a Huayra.

Maserati and Ferrari are both owned by Fiat. I think it's a bit of a shame that Maserati no longer uses its own engines, even thought they tout their "Ferrari-built" engines as a great thing. But, the Ferrari engines and their Maserati counterparts are quite different -- certainly a flat-crank V8 is not the same as a bent-crank V8. And Ferrari and Maserati are rather closer in character than Aston Martin and Toyota are (for those of you who understand that). Of course, soon there will be a Maserati powered by a Jeep engine, and built on a Jeep platform...

I don't want to see Aston use Toyota engines, or M-B engines, or BMW engines, or anyone else's engines. If, however, they start with a basic block design -- as they did with the V8V -- and develop their own engine as extensively differently from that basic beginning as they did with the current V8, then they could credibly have their "own" engine.

If they use Toyota engines, maybe they should simply use whole Toyotas. Wait, they've already done that.

Not driven a Honda S2000 with the amazing F20C engine