Car engines are 29% more powerful than 30 years ago despite shrinking sizes

Today's normal family cars have the same amount as power as a performance hot hatch from 30 years ago, despite the fact engines are getting smaller and cleaner.

Carmakers' ingenuity in squeezing more horsepower out of ever-shrinking powertrains means that the average power output matches iconic performance cars of yesteryear.

This is Money can exclusively reveal that carmakers have achieved a 28.9 per cent increase in engine power output in just over 20 years, as found by analysis from data technology specialists Vehicle Data Global (VDG).

Why is this maximum output with minimum engine size happening? 

Because manufacturers are under pressure to meet ever more stringent environmental legislation on emissions.

So, which 'normal' cars of today put classic sports cars and hot hatches of the past to shame? And how have manufacturers managed to create so much power from smaller engines?

Skoda Octavia

The Skoda Octavia is available in both hatchback or an estate body styles and is probably best thought of as a very practical everyday family car with a huge boot, good fuel economy, and a reasonable price tag.

But buyers of the model, which costs from under £30,000, might be surprised to know that it is more powerful than some late-nineties hot hatches.

Despite a 25 per cent smaller engine, a Skoda Octavia 1.5 TSI e-TEC 150PS DSG mild hybrid produces brake horsepower equivalent to the beloved Vauxhall Astra GSi and Renault Clio Williams of the 1990s.

Nissan Qashqai

The Nissan Qashqai is famous for being a pioneering crossover that combines the high driving position of an SUV with the compact size, agility, and economy of a hatchback.

As such, it has proved extremely popular, with over four million units sold in Europe across three generations.

Today a new petrol mild hybrid Nissan Qashqai costs from £31,145.

It doesn't scream power, but the humble Nissan Qashqai 1.3 DIG-T 158PS mild hybrid produces around 156 bhp – more than the six-cylinder 2.5-litre classic Triumph TR6 PI in the early 1970s, VDG has worked out.

Ford Puma

The Ford Puma was originally introduced as a nineties three-door compact coupe before taking on a second life in 2019 as a compact crossover, straddling the fence between small hatchback and SUV.

VDG's data shows that the Puma 1.0 EcoBoost 155PS mild hybrid produces approximately 153bhp from a 999cc three-cylinder petrol engine.

That's around 16 per cent more power than the celebrated Ford Escort RS Turbo of the 1980s, which produced 132bhp from a 1.6-litre turbocharged motor.

While we reiterate that the comparison uses the mild hybrid variant of the Puma, it still shows how a 37 per cent smaller cylinder capacity can produce more horsepower.

Engines have got smaller yet more powerful

Since 2005, the average engine capacity fell 7.8 per cent, from 1,771cc to 1,633cc, VDG calculated.

At the same time, average power per litre rose by a huge 42.9 per cent to 69.1kW per litre – a measure of power output relative to engine capacity.

Over the last 20 years, median engine size (the middle value among all engine capacities) has fallen from 1,599cc to 1,498cc, while median power rose from about 107bhp to 138bhp.

Taking 134bhp (100kW) as a benchmark for performance, VDG found that back in 2005 only 8,500 cars producing at least that much power from an engine of 1.5 litres or less were registered.

This compares with a whopping 444,000 last year – an increase from 0.4 per cent to 26.7 per cent of all registrations.

VDG conducted the analysis to illustrate how the engineering ingenuity of turbocharging – the process of increasing an internal combustion engine's power by using a turbocharger to force extra compressed air into the combustion chamber – and hybrid technology squeezed ever more power out of the smaller engines that were necessary to help meet increasingly stringent CO2 target reductions.

In the case of hybrid vehicles, reported power figures in VDG's analysis include the contributions from electric motors, rather than reflecting the combustion engine's output alone.

Ben Hermer, operations director of VDG, said: 'Nothing illustrates the engineering success of modern car makers better than our analysis of powertrain output increases from ever-shrinking engines over the past 20 years.

'They did this by an ingenious combination of turbocharging and introducing new contributions, in the form of hybrid technology.

'Back in 2005, getting 134bhp+ from a 1.5-litre-or-smaller engine was unusual, whereas now more than one new registration in four offers that advantage.'

Which engine size is most popular?

The analysis also highlights how small engines are becoming increasingly appealing as they're more practical as well as more efficient.

Even small 1.0-litre engines increased from about 3.3 per cent of registrations in 2005 to a peak of 18 per cent in 2020, before settling back last year to 14.5 per cent.

However, the downsizing of engines appears to be plateauing, with little change in average engine capacity in recent years, even as power outputs continue to rise.

In 2019, average capacity was about 1,645cc before dropping slightly to 1,633cc in 2025, whereas power continued climbing from 105kW to 111kW. This suggests that ever more efficiency is being achieved even as engine capacities are no longer reducing at the same rate as before.

'Car makers faced increasingly stringent regulatory pressures as governments focused on reducing emissions, and they responded with a combination of engine downsizing, turbocharging and the introduction of electrical motor assistance,' Hermer added.

'In the process, they radically changed the relationship between engine size and performance. The old intuitive assumption that a 2.0-litre car is inherently more powerful than a 1.5 is no longer true.

'Cutting emissions without sacrificing performance was a difficult challenge, but they achieved more than that, by achieving major improvements at the same time.

'All of this suggests that it might be time to abandon the old adage that there is no replacement for displacement.'