BMW may have perfected it but Spyker invented the inline-six more than a century ago
Published on Oct 15, 2025 at 11:00 PM (UTC+4)
by Ben Thompson
Last updated on Oct 15, 2025 at 2:41 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
BMW may have perfected it, but it was Spyker who invented the inline-six engine more than a century ago.
The inline-six has powered cars such as the Nissan Skyline GT-4, the A80 Toyota Supra, and more BMWs than we could count.
As such, the German brand has often been associated with I6 engines.
However, BMW didn’t invent inline-six engines – that distinction belongs to Spyker.
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The origins of the inline-six engine
An I6 has six cylinders arranged in a straight line along a crankshaft, with each cylinder containing a piston connected to a crankshaft.
As the pistons shoot up and down the cylinders, the crankshaft converts the motion into a spinning motion that turns the wheels of the car.
Whilst I6s have largely been replaced by V6 engines in recent years, it’s estimated that at one point in the early 2000s, around 10 percent of vehicles sold had inline-six engines, according to enginecrux.
But where did the engine get its start?
Spyker introduced the first automobile with an I6 engine way back in 1903.
However, it was used in a specific race car – the Dutch Spyker 60 HP.
By 1909, approximately 80 manufacturers were using them.
BMW wouldn’t produce an inline-six engine until 1917, and even then, it was for use in an airplane.
The company wouldn’t use one for a car until 1933, with the 1933 BMW 303.
The car industry has come a long way in the last century
A whole lot has changed in the hundred-plus years that have passed since the I6 was invented.
But something being old doesn’t mean it’s obsolete.
When footage of the Model T off-roading in the 1920s resurfaced, people were stunned at what it was capable of.
Sure, the design is far from what we’d want from our cars nowadays, but it could still hold its own.
The same could be said of the Duesenberg ‘Twenty Grand’, which still drives like a modern car despite being 100 years old.
The car industry is in a constant state of change – even how Ford made its cars back in the 1990s is worlds apart from how it is nowadays.
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