Question of the Week: what’s the greatest naturally aspirated V8 car of all time?

Don’t you just love a thumping great naturally aspirated V8? There’s something equally terrifying (noise) and satisfying (er, noise) about them, and for so many years now, Mercedes-AMG has been one of its biggest champions.

Though this week news broke that its new special edition AMG GT3 (admittedly a motorsport effort - the road-going nat-asp V8s were phased out years ago) will be the very last model to use its incredible 6.3-litre naturally aspirated V8. And that got us thinking: what do you lot think is the greatest naturally aspirated V8 car ever made?

We can’t talk about this sort of powertrain without dropping a line about Ferrari’s ‘F136’ 4.5-litre V8 - most famously used in the 458 Speciale. Where Merc’s sound technicians bottled a bit of thunder, Maranello went for more of a screamer. Performance in the Speciale isn’t half bad either: 597bhp, a flat three-second run to 62 and a circa 200mph top speed. And all that draped behind a face that could feature on the cover of every edition of Vogue.

Why don’t we consider a slightly humbler option, like the E92 M3? It’s just a few years off its 20th anniversary, and it’s aged incredibly well in terms of design and performance. The latter in particular is what we’re concerned about here because the 4.0-litre ‘S65’ V8 sits in a car that’s both light on its feet and powerful enough to hoon down straights. Particularly when it’s screaming at the top of its 8,400rpm vocal cord. It’s without doubt one of the great M cars of the modern age.

Let’s round up our usual triumvirate of considerations with something from the nation which popularised V8s to begin with: the Corvette Z06. Its all-natural 5.5-litre flat-plane crank V8 puts out around 670bhp. But what makes the latest generation of Chevy’s long-serving sports car so special is that it now really feels like it can go up against the rest of the world’s exotica. It has the looks, it has the cornering ability and, above all else, it's now mid-engined.

So, we’ll let you guys slug it out in the comment section. Let us know what your all-time favourite naturally aspirated V8 car is, and we’ll compile a list of the very best arguments for Friday’s result post. See you there.