BMW N74

The N74 is BMW’s 6.6-litre twin-turbocharged V12 — the last twelve-cylinder engine
the company built, and the only V12 in our United States records. It powered the M760i xDrive,
the most powerful and least common BMW saloon of its era, and when it stopped there was no
replacement.

What the N74 is

A 6.6-litre V12 with two turbochargers, direct injection and Valvetronic. The factory code
in the certification filings we hold is N74B66U2, and the number in the middle
is the displacement: 6.6 litres, twelve cylinders, 550 cc each — almost exactly the
module size of BMW’s modular four- and six-cylinder families, arranged twice over.

Our brochure archive stops at 2020 and holds no United States document describing this
engine, so nothing here is quoted from a factory publication. Everything below comes from
government certification records.

Where it is fitted

Six specification pages, all of them M760i xDrive, all at 601 hp. That
is the highest output of any engine in our records outside the M division’s own cars, and it
comes from the only BMW road car of the period with more than eight cylinders.

The V12 has a longer history than that in other markets and in the 760i saloons that came
before — but the engine code for those cars is not in the certification data we hold, and
where a code cannot be read out of a government record we do not assert it. What we can say
with a source is: 2017 to 2022, M760i xDrive, 601 hp.

Thirty-four years of BMW V12s, from the fuel economy records

The EPA has recorded cylinder counts since 1984, which means the whole American history of
the BMW twelve-cylinder can be read out of one government dataset rather than assembled from
recollection. Fifty entries, eleven model names, 1988 to 2022:

Two things stand out. The displacement climbs steadily — 5.0 litres in 1988, 6.6 in
2017 — while the fuel economy improves rather than falls, from 12 mpg to 16. And after
2022 the column simply ends: no BMW in the records since has more than eight cylinders. The
flagship 7 Series today is an S68 V8 or an electric i7.

Those V8s produce the same 601 hp the N74 did, from two fewer cylinders and less fuel. The
case for twelve cylinders was never output; it was smoothness, and smoothness is the one thing
a specification table cannot show you.

There is a second reason it mattered to BMW. The company owns Rolls-Royce, and
twelve-cylinder engines of this family have been the basis of Rolls-Royce power units —
which is one of the more concrete answers to the question of what BMW’s ownership of that
marque actually involves. Our article on
whether BMW owns Rolls-Royce covers the arrangement
itself.

What we do not publish

No reliability rating. The NHTSA complaint database records faults against a
vehicle, not an engine, and with six certification entries across six model years the
population is far too small for a complaint count to mean anything even in principle. Anything
you read as a durability verdict on the N74 is drawn from anecdote.

Common questions

Does BMW still make a V12?

Not for the cars in our records. The last V12 BMW in United States certification data is
the 2022 M760i xDrive. Everything above the eight-cylinder cars since is either a V8 or
electric.

How much horsepower does the BMW V12 have?

601 hp in every M760i xDrive in our records, 2017 through 2022.

Which BMW has a V12?

With an N74 specifically: the M760i xDrive, 2017 to 2022. BMW sold twelve-cylinder cars in
America from 1988 — the 750iL, the 850i, 850Ci and 850CSi, the 760i and 760Li — and
the table above lists them from EPA records. Those earlier cars used earlier V12 families whose
factory codes are not in the certification data we hold, so we do not attribute them here.

Is the BMW V12 the same as the Rolls-Royce engine?

Rolls-Royce twelve-cylinder engines come from BMW’s V12 family; they are not identical
units, and we hold no certification records for Rolls-Royce cars, so we cannot describe the
differences from a source. What is documented is the ownership: BMW has owned Rolls-Royce
Motor Cars since 1998, as our article on the subject
sets out from BMW’s own material.

Why did BMW stop making V12s?

We do not publish reasons we cannot source. What the data shows is the outcome: a 601 hp
twelve-cylinder in 2022, and V8s producing the same output on less fuel by 2024.

Sources

Factory engine code, output, model years and fuel economy from EPA annual certification test
data and fuel economy data, with the source named on every
specification page. No brochure covering this engine is held in the
archive.