If you firmly believe there is no replacement for displacement, Mercedes has good news. It’s finally acknowledging what enthusiasts have said for years: You can’t swap out a big engine for a complex hybrid setup and expect everyone to be happy. The company isn’t abandoning electrification, but its latest comments suggest the V8 is getting another chance to shine, and the V12 may have a future beyond its current applications.

 

Speaking at a media roundtable, CEO Ola Källenius admitted in an interview with Road & Track that the company had underestimated the appeal of traditional eight-cylinder engines. Discussing the four-cylinder plug-in hybrid C63, he said: “What we perhaps underestimated at the time was the good old V8 crowd is a pretty good crowd. So you did not get the whole tribe with you.”