Seven Beloved Automakers That Should Never Have Offered A Diesel Engine

When it comes to car companies, heritage is sacred. Porsches are iconized by their flat-six engines, BMWs straight-sixes, Subaru boxer-fours, Ferrari V8s and V12s… you get the picture.

However lamentable, it’s understandable when, occasionally, manufacturers of cars with even the purest bloodlines go astray by pandering to either newly perceived market trends or entering previously untried segments, when selling the proverbial family silver becomes the only means of survival.

Take, for example, a company like Porsche, which by the mid-1990s had a debt pile deeper in the red than a GT3 RS is able to rev. Traditionalists raised on widow-making-whale-tails balked at the idea of Zuffenhausen churning out an impurer badge-trading bearer like the Boxster that was a wholly marketing-driven rival to the lesser BMW Z3 and Mercedes-Benz SLK. But as the vultures continued to circle, they had little choice.

The injection of these two models saved Porsche, which would subsequently go on to become one of the world’s most profitable vehicle brands today. The bitter lesson for brand broadening-hating flat-earthers was thus: when needs must, expansion equals survival, and usually that means doing things you don’t really want to.

Like introducing diesel models into previously-purely-gas lineups.

Diesel Dreams

The 1970s oil crisis, which sent gas prices sky-high, necessitated car companies to start making more fuel-efficient cars either by decreasing their engines’ capacities or experimenting with alternative fuels. With diesel technology by then having already been around for nearly a century, several French, German and Italian carmakers adopted it, with consumers enjoying improved gas mileage and vehicle lifespan compared to gas, as well as lower taxes on diesel-powered cars as well as the fuel itself.

In the 2000s, the case for diesel had matured. Gas-powered cars were becoming cleaner and more fuel-efficient thanks to the introduction of Euro-emission-grading levels introduced in the previous decade; and diesel correspondingly became increasingly seen as a means to proliferate model ranges rather than being foundational to them.

On the other hand, the intersection of platform-sharing and the consolidation of sub-brands under single entities was the greatest enabler of diesel engines rapidly appearing in previously unconsidered vehicle line-ups.

First the Germans

The 2000s saw the formation of the Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler, General Motors and Renault-Nissan empires that incorporated countless respective sub-brands under each conglomerate’s umbrella. For example, the VW Group launched the first-gen Porsche Cayenne as well as the Volkswagen Touareg in 2002, with the Audi Q7 following three years later. All three shared the same platform, and from 2009 onwards, the Porsche was sold with a group-sourced diesel engine also available in the Touareg and Q7.

The Panamera diesel followed with the same engine in 2011 (later the 4.0-liter V8), as did the Audi Q5-based Macan in 2015. Endured by the company’s faithful as uninvited guests, diesel versions continued to be sold until Porsche announced its intention to cease production of all such-powered models in 2018, to instead focus on hybrids and EVs and echo customer demand, closing a chapter in the brand’s history that will not be missed.

Sister company Bentley suffered the same fate after the Bentayga diesel (as found in the Panamera 4S, SQ7/8 and Touareg) was pulled from the market after just one year in the showrooms.

Square peg, round hole: the suggested synthesis of suaveness and sootiness was incongruous; and even if the bountiful 665 lb-ft could be considered tar-tearing, the absence of acoustics and sheer theater brought about by the presence of the stoic diesel engine – was not.

What’s more, diesel rocketed to the height of unsexiness in 2017, leaving parent company VW to hastily and very publicly commit to what came across at the time as an “anything-but” future alternative fuel strategy, leaving the oil-burning Bentayga to die on the vine.

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Then The Italians

Another premium brand to have given diesel a look-in was Maserati. For a company whose legacy was steeped in racing heroics, this was a particularly painful and uncharacteristic avenue. In 2013, the Quattroporte and Ghibli heralded Maserati’s debut in the luxury diesel sedan segment. Both hoped to complement an engaging driving feel with the promise of diesel’s greater fuel efficiency.

The diesel-powered Levante followed in 2016, and, given that segment’s foundations, probably made the most sense, other than it still being an SUV with a Maserati badge – which of course didn’t. The company killed all its diesel cars in 2019 and committed to an all-electric future by 2028.

Italy’s other two brands have not fared better. Even if 1986’s Fiat Panda was comparatively late to the diesel hatchback party (Volkswagen introduced the Mk1 Golf diesel in 1976), it comes from a brand best loved for stylish, cutesy, compact urban runabouts such as the (first-gen) 500.

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The number has dropped significantly in the past few years.

When the now-ancient, then-new Fiat 500 saw the light in 2007, a diesel engine was immediately available, which served in the range until 2019 – a decisive year that saw many carmakers switch their alternative energy focus from diesel to hybrid and EV, owing to then-impending stricter Euro 6 emissions standards. As if Fiat’s me-too Mini throwback felt it was trying too hard already, a diesel engine transformed the 500 from dreary to downright desperate.

Then there’s Alfa Romeo. Having long since turned its back on its motorsport glory of yore, it launched a raft of diesel engines across ranges, starting with the 156 in 1997, then the 147, 159, MiTo, Giulietta, Stelvio, Giulia and Tonale. SUVs – the Stelvio and Tonale aside, each of Alfa’s diesel iterations felt as wrong as the next one, but with the brand today a mere bit-part player in the 14-strong-but-most-in-trouble-Stellantis group, it has no choice but to tow the party line when it comes to compliance with platform- and engine-sharing dictats: the cauldron of commonality where once-unique brand identities go and die.

Don’t Forget The Brits

To try to fight the German onslaught, Jaguar (another brand with an abandoned racing history) has also resorted to fitting diesels in its cars. The first was the S-Type in 2004 – a platform-shared Ford Thunderbird under the Premier Automotive Group that paired Ford, Jaguar, Aston Martin and others together, which then later branched out to the XF as the S-Type’s replacement in 2008, and the S-Class and 7 Series-rivalling XJ in 2010, followed by the 3 Series-targeting XE in 2015.

Needless to say, diesel-powered SUVs were never far away. The F-Pace and smaller E-Pace mirrored Audi, BMW and Mercedes’ efforts, again trading on its brand cachet in the hope of expanding its customer pool, while its roots were forgotten and left to rot.

Finally, there’s Mini. A once-giant-killing marque whose light weight and compact proportions spawned a generation of rally-dominating demons in the 1960s. When BMW bought Mini from the struggling Rover group in 1994 and design sketches appeared soon thereafter, revealing the Germans’ hand in an ultra-cool, tech-driven retro-reimagining, all in the world was good.

It was too good to last.

Under BMW’s thumb, Mini had to strengthen its presence in the Euro-supermini category where diesel dominated. So, in 2007, the first Mini Cooper D emerged, backed up in 2009 by the One D and the Clubman diesel some years later; the Cooper SD and Countryman diesel, all the while as Minis grew in size and alienated their founding concept of cheap, compact lightness. The crowning glory of dystopia came in 2016 when Mini unveiled the – wait for it – the diesel-powered JCW. By then, not only had Minis grown to the size of Golfs, but the sacred John Cooper Works name was trashed and treaded on by the addition of a diesel suffix.

Seldom do regulatory interventions signal positive outcomes in the automotive industry, yet the aforementioned introduction of Euro 6 emissions standards and later Euro6d (for diesels) came as a gift from the gods to stop the diesel madness from getting out of hand in the late-2010s.

Of the companies listed above, in 2025 only Alfa-Romeo and Fiat are still selling diesel models, whereas the rest are switching to full electric or re-prioritizing hybridization, as global EV uptake continues to slow.

No doubt, the post-Dieselgate fallout played no small part here as the happiest of accidents.

Sources: Autocar, Autocar, Autonews.com, Gearpatrol.com, Gearshifters.org, Thedrive.com