Possibly the end to the Naturally Aspirated performance Car?

      As the announcement from Ferrari came out about the details for the replacement for the 458 came out, the 488 had some details that are beginning to spell the demise for a realm of this car world.

      The end that i am talking about is that of the naturally aspirated performance car.  What this means is that many sports and super cars are beginning to feel the pinch of governmental emissions standards that are becoming all too much of a reality for us all.  These standards are forcing companies to downsize engine displacement and add either a turbo or a supercharger to the engine to compensate for the loss of power from the smaller engine and also to improve emissions of the car. The all too real world of emission-concerned people (tree-huggers) has even made its way into the almost imaginary racing world of companies like Ferrari, Nissan Nismo, Mercedes AMG, Dodge SRT, and other performance brands.  

      For example, the new Ferrari 488 features a smaller, turbocharged engine.  Now for those of you who are familiar with the 458 engine, this was easily one of the greatest performing V8 engines ever. Period. Now why would Ferrari do away with such am amazingly developed engine? Two words are all that are needed, Emissions Standards.  With tighter emission standards, the engine in the old 458 was maxed out in terms of fuel economy, and facing possible restrictions of import from countries like the U.S. sadly it had to lose some bulk and go turbo.  Other cars that have faced the same treatment go on to include the BMW M4 coupe, nearly every Porsche 911, Mercedes C63 AMG, and the Nissan 370z and the GTR.  

      What this means, is that the end is nearing, especially for the V8, with most V6's alerady gone the way of forced induction, the V8 is inevitably soon to follow.  in my opinion we may already be seeing the last hurrah of this great american icon.   And it is found in the form of a car that couldn't be more befitting to send it off into the sunset.  That car is Ford's new Mustang GT350 and GT350R.  With Ford finally taking a leaf out of Ferrari's book and came up with a flat crank deign allowing for endless revs all the way up to 9,000 RPM's.  When this car is going around the track or simply driving, it seems that you could just pick a gear and let it run forever.  Along with this, Ford also has an active valve cutoff valves that change the exhaust dynamics completely when changed from driving to track mode.  The video below, thanks to Ford themselves gives a demonstration of what I am talking about. After you listen to the ear-gasmic exhaust I am sure that you will be a believer in this car as well.

     Ford Mustang Exhaust

At about 20 to 30 seconds you will know what i mean about the active exhaust changing, and be careful, it gets pretty loud.