A countdown of the six largest production engines General Motors ever built draws exactly the kind of comment section you would expect from a genuinely technical audience, including one commenter’s joke that working on a 496-cubic-inch big-block requires a mandatory cigarette dangling from the mouth at all times. Beneath the humor sits real engineering history, including a detailed explainer on how GM’s divisions once each built their own competing V8 platforms. Watch the full countdown to see which engines made the cut.
There is a very specific breed of comedy that only exists in the intersection of heavy machinery and blue-collar pride, and one comment underneath this countdown captures it perfectly: apparently there is a strict, unwritten shop-floor rule that anyone working on a 496-cubic-inch big-block absolutely must have a cigarette dangling out of the corner of their mouth at all times while they do it, no exceptions. That joke only lands because the video it is attached to takes its subject completely seriously, six of the largest engines General Motors ever put into production, and the kind of raw displacement numbers that made smaller-block loyalists quietly reconsider their allegiances.
Why Displacement Alone Still Commands Respect
In an era increasingly dominated by turbocharging, forced induction, and computer-managed power delivery, a countdown built purely around raw cubic-inch displacement feels almost defiantly old-school, and that is exactly its appeal. GM’s biggest engines earned their reputation the simplest way possible, more cylinders, more bore, more stroke, and the kind of low-end torque that a smaller, more sophisticated engine simply cannot replicate no matter how cleverly or efficiently that smaller engine happens to be engineered on paper. For a muscle car audience raised entirely on the idea that there is simply no replacement for displacement, a list like this one functions almost like a highlight reel of that entire philosophy’s greatest hits, one massive engine at a time.
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The Cigarette Comment as Genuine Shop-Floor Culture
The joke about smoking while wrenching on a 496 big-block is not really about cigarettes at all, it is a wink at the specific culture surrounding big-displacement engine work: unhurried, physical, and steeped in decades of shop-floor tradition that predates modern safety culture by a wide margin. That kind of humor shows up constantly in comment sections under big-block content specifically, because working elbow-deep on a genuinely massive engine still carries a certain blue-collar mystique that a modern, plastic-covered turbocharged four-cylinder simply cannot evoke in the same visceral way for most viewers watching along at home.
How GM Engine Divisions Used to Compete Internally
One of the more technically informed comments explains something easy to forget in the modern era of unified corporate engineering: GM used to let each of its own divisions, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac, independently design, engineer, and build their own distinct 350-cubic-inch V8 among several other shared displacements, with finished engines then quietly interchanged between different models depending entirely on supply chains and production needs at any given plant. That kind of internal competition and duplication would be considered wildly inefficient by modern corporate standards, but it produced a genuinely diverse, fascinating range of engineering approaches, all aimed at solving the exact same basic problem in noticeably different ways.
The Biggest Names That Usually Anchor This Kind of List
A countdown of GM’s largest production engines almost always includes the 454-cubic-inch big-block Chevrolet, a genuine mainstay under the hoods of Chevelles, pickup trucks, and full-size cars for years on end, alongside genuinely massive Cadillac and Oldsmobile offerings that rarely get muscle car attention at all despite being larger in raw displacement than almost anything ever wearing a Chevrolet bowtie badge. That inclusion of luxury-division engines sitting right alongside the expected performance-brand names is part of what makes a video like this one genuinely informative rather than just a simple rehash of the same five engines that every other muscle car channel already covers exhaustively and repeatedly.
Why Big-Block Torque Still Matters for Real-World Driving
Beyond simple bragging rights and comment-section arguments, massive displacement translates directly into a real driving characteristic that smaller, higher-revving engines genuinely struggle to match: enormous low-RPM torque that makes a car feel effortlessly powerful from a dead stop without ever needing to approach redline. That torque-first character is exactly why big-block-powered classics remain so beloved for street driving specifically, where genuinely usable low-end grunt matters far more on a daily basis than a high-revving powerband that only shows its true potential well above legal speeds on any public road anyway.
The Modern Crate Engine Market Keeps These Numbers Relevant
These historical displacement figures are not just idle trivia for a comment section, they directly inform the modern crate engine and restoration market, where builders regularly chase and even exceed the original big-block numbers using modern aftermarket blocks and stroker kits. A list like this one essentially functions as a target sheet for that entire community of builders, showing exactly what factory engineers managed to achieve decades ago with far more primitive tooling, slide rules, and drafting tables than any modern engine builder would ever recognize sitting at their own computer-aided design desk today.
Why Content Like This Draws a Different Kind of Comment Section
Unlike a video built around a single specific car and its specific story, an engine-focused countdown like this one tends to draw a comment section skewed noticeably heavier toward builders and working mechanics rather than casual car spectators, viewers who care specifically about bore, stroke, and displacement figures rather than paint color or body styling. That technically literate audience is exactly why comments here read more like an informal engineering discussion than typical car-video chatter, correcting minor errors, filling in production numbers, and adding historical context that the video itself may have understandably glossed over or simplified for time.
Why Raw Displacement Still Earns Its Own Category of Respect
Turbocharging and modern engineering have made huge horsepower numbers achievable from surprisingly small engines, but A list built specifically around GM’s biggest production engines taps into something that raw horsepower figures on their own simply cannot fully capture: the specific, almost primal satisfaction of watching a genuinely massive engine do its work through sheer physical size and swept volume rather than through clever electronic tuning or a turbocharger strapped to the side of it. That is exactly why content built entirely around displacement keeps steadily earning views from an audience that still values raw cubic inches as its own distinct, worthy category of automotive achievement, separate from horsepower entirely.
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And they still couldn’t touch the 426 Hemi lol
632 bbc will
There is no substitute for horsepower like the cubic dollar
You’ve fell and bumped your fucking head too… I’ve seen it happen, 340 mopar vs 426 mopar cuda. The 340 Dart had the better driver, it’s not all about the engine.
Hemi couldn’t touch the Cammer either.
Bull. My worked 70 Z28 350 ate every Hemi it raced in that era. In NHRA Pro Stock now let me know when a Hemi ever wins a championship let alone the event at a national race.The only thing that wins in Pro Stock are BB Chevys.
As far as “street legal, off the showroom floor” the Hemis of the day would get eaten by an aluminum block 427 or the LS6. With a bit of “tuning” which the “stock” Hemis needed badly the Hemi was pretty much untouchable, but in a Charger, or a Challenger off the showroom floor even a 67 Nova with the stock HiPo 327 would walk away from the Hemi and only get reeled in a bit or a lot after about 800 feet.
And they still can’t touch the super exotic voodoo
Buick also made a 455
Wish I had one to go in s-10
cadillac 472 and 500
But they forgot the big one. http://www.enginelabs.com/news/a-look-back-at-the-702ci-gmc-twin-six-v12-engine/
GM’s are cool enough but come on man lets talk the the Rulers of the BAD ASS CAR WORLD…………………MOPAR !!!!!!!!!
Some for sure, but Chevies are the most in the record books.
richard petty, garlits, pruhumme. an many others, all hemi drivers an all record holders
Yep. I said some for sure! Garlits made himself famous and a world renowned millionaire with the first gen 392 hemi. I’m saying good thingS. For every Chrysler out there there were 6-8 strong Chevies running, They were heap to buy and cheap to build. For thr first time pop racers had spare motors
Phillip Hayes
632 motor
Little stuff
427 sohc
Yep
What about the 1005 cu in bbc ?
That’s a Sonny Leonard engine. Nothing to do with GM.
My bad.
The 572 Chevy crate motor seen to be the best for your money and for power So it’s my choice
I like to have a 572big block F.I.with the new 10 speed automatic has anybody done this yet
Where is the 454 for the LS Chevelle?
GM—U guys have been sleeping for years….DOUCHEBAGS….Your not into racing…Just looking to sell a few extra cars…Jerkoffs……….
That engine is fine if you’re going to race, it’s a waste around town or back roads
Robert Amatangelo
I had a 69 Buick Wildcat with 455 cubic inch big block.
Awesome
Chevy is and always have been the best on the market (y)
Alex Claassen
So thats what slow looks like.