Best cars to Turbo

Mercedes-Benz has always been in the forefront of diesel passenger car development, but even a company with its engineering heritage must have been surprised at the revolution it launched with the turbocharged 300SD.

Turbocharging had been used on industrial-strength diesels well before the 300SD appeared in 1978, but those brawny (and very heavy) engines were built to take the abuse of combining forced induction with the already sky-high compression ratios needed for diesel combustion. Light-duty diesels, like Mercedes' then-familiar 3.0-liter inline Five, it was assumed, just couldn't take the punishment.

But diesels were the rage in the late '70s, and if Mercedes was going to sell its big "W116" S-Class sedan with the diesel Five (and a lot of buyers wanted a diesel S-Class), that engine was going to have to make something more than just its usual 77 hp. And Mercedes didn't have time to design a whole new engine.

Through careful control of the combustion process, precise fuel metering with fuel injection, refined wastegate control of the turbo and some reinforcement to handle the additional loads, Mercedes produced a turbocharged version of its diesel Five that made 110 hp while remaining quiet and refined enough for use in its flagship sedan. It may have been only 110 hp back then, but it was a huge breakthrough.

The 300SD's turbocharged Five simply rewrote the light-duty-diesel playbook and made diesels attractive enough that they dominate the market today in Europe. And virtually all light-duty diesels today are turbocharged.

5. 1984 Buick Grand National and Regal T-Type

In 1976, Buick won the honor of building a pace car for that year's Indianapolis 500. But with production-car performance near its nadir and Buick trying to establish a distinct image for itself instead of putting a big 455 V8 into one of its midsize Century coupes, the company built a special one-off turbocharged version of its carbureted 3.8-liter V6 to power that pace car. Buick was playing with turbochargers, but no one could expect the glory to come.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Buick's first production turbo V6s came during the 1978 model year when engines similar to that used in the 1976 Indy Pace Car were installed in the Regal and LeSabre Sport Coupes. Rated at 150 hp when breathing through a two-barrel carburetor and 165 hp if the carb had four barrels, the 90-degree overhead-valve 3.8-liter V6s were the only turbocharged engines being made in America for production cars. In fact, the only other turbo cars then on the market from any manufacturers were the Porsche 911 Turbo and the Saab 99 Turbo.

The first Buick turbos weren't bad, but they weren't really all that great either. It's when Buick stepped up and added sequential electronic fuel injection to the mix in 1984 that things got good.

The fuel-injected Buick turbo Six was rated at 200 hp even that first year when it was available in the T-Type and Grand National versions of the midsize Regal coupe. But that rating was conservative and when mated to GM's 2004R four-speed automatic transmission, the result was a rocketship (0 to 60 in about 8 seconds). Well, not just a quick car but a very liveable one with impeccable driveability, decent fuel economy and predictable handling. The T-Type quietly faded away, but the bad-in-black Grand National quickly became a legend.