Watch: The World's Smallest V12 Engine

World smallest V12 engine

We don't know if this is actually the official "World's Smallest V12 Engine", but it's pretty darn small. The subtitles appear to be in Spanish or Portuguese(?), and the video is a few years old, so you may have seen this.

The builder's name is Yesus Wilder, who reportedly built the engine using only aluminum, bronze, and stainless steel. It is made of 516 pieces, 372 screws, and took 1,580 hours to complete. There is no information on who was shown machining all of those tiny parts, so we're assuming that it was Wilder, himself. Either way, it's a stunning piece of art, that took an incredible amount of skill and dedication.

The engine is technically not an actual combustion engine, as it lacks both an ignition system and fuel, so Wilder pumps compressed air into it to make it operate. Skip to the 8:06 mark if you want to go directly to the tiny engine in action, but be fore-warned that you will be missing out on a truly inspiring crescendo to the "Pirates On The High Seas"-type backing track, which works great for this video, in it's own weird way.

I went into this getting ready to roll my eyes over some silly truck driver getting excited over something unimpressive, but that actually is impressive. That guy has amazing skills. I can't fathom how he did the camshaft to get the timing right. I wonder why he uses flat head screws? Also, I wonder how much HP it has.