Sacre bleu!

You almost have to wonder when the engineers at Peugeot get the time to drink wine and eat brie. Hot on the heels of its announcement that Peugeot and sister company Citroen will build a mini car with Toyota comes word that the French automaker and BMW have joined forces on a 1.6-liter four-cylinder that will power various Peugeot and Citroen models, as well as the Mini.

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Initially, the engine will be available in two states of tune: a normally aspirated version with 115 hp, and a mildly turbocharged motor with 143 hp. Later they will be joined by 75-hp and 170-hp variants, the latter targeted for the Mini Cooper 5. All will have standard variable intake valve timing, a volume flow-controlled oil pump, individual ignition coils, composite camshafts, an on-demand mechanical coolant pump, a single belt to drive engine ancillaries, an aluminum block with grey-cast iron liners, two-piece bedplate construction (like BMW's new V10), and roller-type valve actuators. In addition, the performance versions feature a twin-scroll turbo, direct fuel injection, sintered steel inserts in the aluminum bedplate, and a low-pressure die-cast aluminum cylinder head in place of the lost foam unit on the base engine. The latter also features variable exhaust valve timing and sequential multi-port fuel injection, but does away with the combustion chamber trough in the center of the piston that helps stratify the air-fuel charge on the turbo engine.