Matra Sports V12 engine

The Matra Sports V12 engine is a family of automotive internal combustion engines built for Formula One and sports car endurance racing. Versions of the engine won at the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times.

History
The Matra Sport V12 was designed by engineer Georges Martin, who had earlier designed Simca's Poissy engine. Martin joined Matra at the end of 1966 through the efforts of Philippe Guédon, a former colleague of his at Simca who later became CEO of Matra. Martin was unsure of what he would be working on until Jean-Luc Lagardère, Matra's CEO at the time, explained that Martin would be designing a new Formula One engine with a specific output target of 150 horsepower per litre.

Features
The Matra Sports V12 is a four-stroke, water-cooled all-aluminum 60° double overhead camshaft V12 engine with a seven-main-bearing crankshaft. It produced between 395-520 hp, and 198-253 lb.ft of torque.

Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

World Sportscar Championship results
The table below summarizes the results obtained by Matra's World Sportscar Championship cars fitted with the Matra Sports V12: