Why Some Ferraris And Lamborghinis Came With Two-Liter V8s

In the 1970s, two of the world's most acclaimed and magnificent automakers built eight-cylinder engines with only two liters of displacement. For reference, that's less than a 2005 RAV4's little four-cylinder, which displaces a healthy 2.4 liters. Why would the creators of '70s behemoths like the almighty Countach or the imposing 512 BB (which has a 5.0-liter V12) bother with such a modest motor?

Well, not even Ferrari and Lamborghini can escape taxes, and due to a stringent Italian tax on luxury items in the '70s, they built some of the least powerful V8 engines ever made — on purpose. Conflicts in the Yom Kippur War resulted in an oil embargo imposed by several oil-producing countries on the United States and other nations in 1973. This caused global shortages and price increases across the U.S., Europe, and beyond. Italy wasn't spared, and in response to the oil crisis, the Italian government imposed a 38% "value-added" tax on new cars with engines which displaced more than two liters. To account for this, Ferrari and Lamborghini adapted production, and thus, the Italian 2.0L V8s were born.

Rather than build entirely new vehicles that avoided Italy's luxury tax, Ferrari and Lamborghini simply downsized the engines of existing models. For example, Ferrari put 2-liter V8 engines in its 308 GTS, 308 GTB, and Dino 308 GT4, resulting in what we now know as the 208 GTS, 208 GTB, and 208 GT4. Meanwhile, Lamborghini introduced a 2-liter V8 in the Uracco, creating the Uracco P200.

As expected, the cars made to adhere to this tax were underpowered, but Lamborghini's project perhaps suffered more than Ferrari's. Only 66 of the Uracco P200s made it into the hands of buyers (and they only made 182 horsepower), but Ferrari managed to build over 800 of the 208 GT4 models (despite making just 170 hp). Besides being some of the least powerful cars made by the two houses, the Uracco P200, 208 GTS, and 208 GTB remain some of the rarest Lamborghini and Ferrari models in existence.

There are plenty of other head-scratching vehicles that employ Ferrari V8s (such as this Subaru rally car or this Ferrari motorcycle), but most of them don't come directly from factory with deliberately low power solely for the Italian market. There's a bit of irony in the fact that some of the weakest Italian V8s are the hardest to find, but the tax man comes for us all in the end.