If you are seeking a new Land Rover V8 Engine to get your 4X4 out of the garage and back on the road or in the fields, you will probably have quite an appreciation already of how fine a piece of engineering a V8 engine is.

Not everyone, however, knows just how great a V8 is. The sheer power and performance are one thing, but not everyone knows just how prolific it is at powering vehicles of many kinds.

That fact, however, has been highlighted in an article by Slashgear, which has noted that one particular engine, the small block Chevrolet V8, has powered more cars than any other engine in motoring history, some 100 million. This compares, it noted, with just over 50 million for the Toyota Corolla engine.

It may come as a disappointment to learn it wasn’t a Land Rover V8 that broke the record, but the Chevy engine does have the advantage that it is made in the world’s number one car-based economy and has been used in other US brands like Buick, Pontiac and Cadillac.

Land Rovers represent a smaller segment of the market than Chevrolet as a V8 user, but the fact remains that these engines have proved their worth time and again in powerful off-road vehicles and SUVs alike.

The simple truth about V8 engines is something even a beginner can understand, with the whole process of powering an engine happening in eight cylinders rather than four (and thus two cylinders firing at once rather than one), providing that extra power for the most robust and enduring vehicles on the road.

Of course, because these extra cylinders make it bigger, a V8 won’t fit in every car. But then again, many vehicles just don’t need this sort of power. Land Rovers are another story.

If you are getting a new V8 engine in, it is worth taking a moment to think just what makes them so powerful, and to appreciate the joy this gives you when you have it fitted and can get behind the wheel.