Volkswagen AP (Alta Performance)

Volkswagen do Brasil's AP — Alta Performance — which powered nearly everything the company sold in South America for twenty years, and which turns up in Fords.

⚑ That last part is the reason to know it exists. Between 1987 and 1996 Ford and Volkswagen ran a merged South American business called Autolatina, and the two shared engines and platforms freely — so a Brazilian Ford Escort of that period can carry a Volkswagen engine with nothing on it saying so. Searching Ford material for an AP1800 finds nothing; searching Volkswagen material finds everything.

It is a development of the EA827, so the European 1.8 of the same era is a close relative and much of that material transfers.

Most were built to run on ethanol or on Brazilian petrol-ethanol blends, which changes the fuel-system parts, the compression ratio and the cold-start arrangement. A part specified for a European car is frequently the wrong one.

It is belt-driven and, in the versions that matter, entirely mechanical.