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Ford has moved all production of the Volvo Short Six to its new facility in Brigend, Wales.
Originally designed by Volvo (prior to the Ford acquisition) for the then-new Volvo S80 in the late 1990s, the tough part of the design exercise was to make the block short enough to be mounted transversely, especially difficult in vehicles with Macpherson strut front suspensions(and their space-consuming strut towers) such as the Volvos have. A 2.9 liter engine until this year, it was updated (engine designation SI6) to 3.2 liters at the Brigend production. At the same time, the transmission was rearragged so that the engine+transmission combo is even shorter than it was on the Volvo S80.
The Jaguar S-Type, which currently has the Jaguar AJ30 V6 engine, a variant of the same 2967cc Duratec that appears in the Mazda6S, will get the Short Six next year. Ford, obviously, considers the SI6 to be an upgrade to the AJ30. Of course, the S-Type is a RWD configuration.
I, for one, would love to see an inline-6 in the Mazda6. Does anyone know if the engine bay of the current Mazda6 has space for the SI6, what with the need for the front-wheel drive components?
Originally designed by Volvo (prior to the Ford acquisition) for the then-new Volvo S80 in the late 1990s, the tough part of the design exercise was to make the block short enough to be mounted transversely, especially difficult in vehicles with Macpherson strut front suspensions(and their space-consuming strut towers) such as the Volvos have. A 2.9 liter engine until this year, it was updated (engine designation SI6) to 3.2 liters at the Brigend production. At the same time, the transmission was rearragged so that the engine+transmission combo is even shorter than it was on the Volvo S80.
The Jaguar S-Type, which currently has the Jaguar AJ30 V6 engine, a variant of the same 2967cc Duratec that appears in the Mazda6S, will get the Short Six next year. Ford, obviously, considers the SI6 to be an upgrade to the AJ30. Of course, the S-Type is a RWD configuration.
I, for one, would love to see an inline-6 in the Mazda6. Does anyone know if the engine bay of the current Mazda6 has space for the SI6, what with the need for the front-wheel drive components?