Legendary engine tuner and manufacturer Cosworth will no longer supply Formula One teams with engines from next season onwards, with its sole remaining buyer Marussia announcing plans to switch to a new supplier. Fortunately, Cosworth has other plans as well, including branching out into the world of production car engines.

You may recall that several F1 engine suppliers were developing new turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder engines under the sport’s proposed 2014 rules, but had to scrap plans for the potent four-bangers once the rules switched to V-6 units.

One of these suppliers was Cosworth. Stuck with a brilliant engine but nowhere to install it, Cosworth started to seek buyers. One such buyer was Jaguar, which saw an opportunity to install the engine in its C-X75 hybrid supercar. Unfortunately, plans for the C-X75 were dropped a year out from the car’s proposed launch.

Things must have looked dire for Cosworth but apparently not so.

Speaking with Piston Heads, Cosworth's principal engineer Andy Ball said a version of the company’s turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine will appear in a production car in the not too distant future. He didn’t say which manufacturer had signed up to use the engine, though in an era of engine downsizing there could potentially be many interested parties.  

“As a road-going engine it could have similar specific power as a Formula One engine of 300 horsepower per liter," Ball said. "We're talking with quite a few manufacturers about doing engines of this ilk--downsized, high specific power output engines."

In F1-spec, the engine developed upwards of 500 horsepower and revved to 10,000 rpm.

In related news, Cosworth CEO Tim Routsis is believed to have been replaced. A spokesman for the company confirmed to Autosport that new leadership was in place at Cosworth to oversee the continuing diversification and growth of the business.

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