Jared Solomon

Ford's engine lineage reads like a hall of fame. The 5.0-liter Coyote V8 still rules the Mustang and F-150, carrying a torch lit decades ago by the beloved pushrod 5.0, the Cologne and Essex V6s, and the thunderous big blocks of the muscle car era — including the Cobra Jet.

Few engine families have shaped American performance culture quite like the small-block V8. Born in mass production in the mid-1950s, it went on to power everything from pickup trucks to SUVs, from muscle cars to purpose-built performance machines. Ford, Chevrolet, Chrysler — every major American automaker had one, and enthusiasts have been arguing about which was best ever since.

Forty years on, it's easy to take for granted what a modern sport bike can do — carve a canyon road with surgical precision, then pull freeway speeds without breaking a sweat. But that combination of outright performance and real-world handling didn't always exist. For most of motorcycling's history, riders had to choose one or the other, and the compromise was frustrating enough that many simply lived with it. Then Suzuki drew a line through the rulebook, and nothing was ever quite the same again.