V engine
internal combustion engine with two banks of cylinders at an angle resembling a 'V'
A V engine, sometimes called a Vee engine, is a common configuration for internal combustion engines. It consists of two cylinder banks—usually with the same number of cylinders in each bank—connected to a common crankshaft. These cylinder banks are arranged at an angle to each other, so that the banks form a "V" shape when viewed from the front of the engine.
V engines typically have a shorter length than equivalent inline engines, however the trade-off is a larger width. V6, V8 and V12 engines are the most common layout for automobile engines with 6, 8 or 12 cylinders respectively.
History
The first V engine, a two-cylinder V-twin, was designed by Wilhelm Maybach and used in the 1889 Daimler Stahlradwagen automobile.
The first V8 engine was produced in 1903, in the form of the Antoinette engine designed by Léon Levavasseur for racing boats and airplanes. The first V12 engine was produced the following year by Putney Motor Works in London, again for use in racing boats. The first V6 engine to reach production appeared soon after in 1908, by the Deutz Gasmotoren Fabrik in Germany for use as a generator for gasoline-electric railway engines. However, it was not until 1950 that the V6 engine was used in series production automobiles, with the first example being the Lancia V6 engine.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “V engine” as internal combustion engine with two banks of cylinders at an angle resembling a 'V'. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as internal combustion engine with two banks of cylinders at an angle resembling a 'V'. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q724736. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1903, 1908 and 1950.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “V engine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.