Obituary: Fond Farewell to Fury

The last few decades has seen an enormous heightening of society's ecological awareness and this has caused people to finally cotton on to an alarming human trait that we are extremely good at killing off other things. Whilst we cannot claim to have been the instigator of the events that led to the sudden disappearance of Tyrannosaurus Rex, we have added many notches to the bedpost of extinction with efforts such as the wooly mammoth, the dodo and, more recently, a Chinese river dolphin, which is hardly surprising given  that Chinese rivers have begun to look like fluvial Fukushimas. Our insatiable desire to aid animals in their progression from this world to the next also springs from the fact that we possess something that most animals do not, a modicum of common sense. Yes, whilst the dolphin may have developed ways of corralling fish against river banks, through the simple application of a bit of ingenuity we developed something called a net which proved to be rather effective. Or over-effective in Spain's case. Animals may be intelligent, but only in relation to non-humans, as even a slobbering oaf is more intelligent than the next animal soon to shuffle its mortal coil, the giant panda, an animal so blitheringly daft that it faces extinction because it refuses to mate with the opposite sex.

   

Soon to join the ranks of the dodo and woolly mammoth. Pity

This neatly brings me onto something that, unlike the animals, we created and now faces extinction at our own hands, the V12 combustion engine. It seems then that the days of the glorious wail of the V12 in masterpieces such as the Lamborghini Miura, Ferrari Enzo and the Pagani Zonda are numbered. The environ(mentalist) and his association of polar bears has instilled a sense of global anxiety in the world surrounding ecological sustainability that no obscure Yangtze dolphin or Japanese Sea Lion has ever managed. Conveniently the state of the V12 represents the state of any species that, in futility attempts to remain on terra firma, as both have outlasted their usefulness. The giant panda no longer sees its own kind as worthy of a bit of rumpy-pumpy so therefore should be removed, and in the same sense so should the V12. Ecological awareness is not a forte of the V12 and yet we can still reach similar power outputs and vastly improved economy from a smaller number of cylinders through a large dollop of ingenuity and a couple of turbochargers, just look at the new M5 or 911. Some may claim that American V8's are far more thirsty than European V12's and they'd be right, but sadly the world now has to bend over to the land of the cheeseburger and gloss over their (innumerable) shortcomings. Luckily though, this biased gridlock may soon end with McDonald's providing the very real possibility of obesity creating an American dodo situation. 

Brave New World?

I for one will mourn the passing of the engine that has been fitted to some of the most iconic symbols of modern automotive and social culture and will miss the hallowed sound of the V12 blasting past, however if it entails a future of more powerful, guilt-free engines being at the forefront then who is to stop it. A world where one can have more than a food blender under the bonnet and less Greenpeacists nagging your conscience seems like a suitable plan of conservation.