Pushrod engines rock on

Further refinement and development of the pushrod engine may seem odd in today's market dominated by overhead-cam power plants. German and Japanese manufacturers have already dropped pushrod engines with Ford Motor using just a couple for their vehicles.

But Chrysler and General Motors have bucked the trend, using refined versions for a plethora of their vehicles, including the Corvette. While cost is usually touted as the main reason for sticking with the venerable design, others, such as fewer moving parts and better integration with Displacement on Demand technology, play a factor as well.

For the regular consumer, the distinction between the two is probably as meaningless as whether the CPU in their computer is from AMD or Intel. As long as it does the job.