Ford is adding a new engine to its global vehicle lineups that has the same displacement as most water bottles - 1 liter. The three cylinder Ecoboost engine is the smallest engine Ford has ever built. Ford first mentioned the engine with the Start concept car when it was rolled out at the Beijing auto show last year.

Like other Ford EcoBoost engines, it uses high-pressure direct gas injection and turbocharging to get better performance and up to 20% better fuel economy compared with larger-displacement engines. Ford has packed other advanced fuel-saving features in this little wonder, some of which Ford is offering for the first time. A split-cooling system allows the cylinder block to warm up before the cylinder head. This will help save fuel during cold weather or short trips because oil and engine fluid viscosity rises as temperatures fall, so more work and more fuel is required to overcome friction in the powertrain. The exhaust manifold is combined with the cylinder head in a single piece casting instead of bolted on. The one-piece assembly lowers the temperature of the exhaust gases and saves weight.

More importantly, the new engine is promised to offer performance that rivals the 1.6 liter 4 cylinder engine used in the Fiesta. Although nothing is official, this implies an output of approximately 120 hp with an accompanying 152 Nm of torque. It recently made its European debut in the Ford B-Max at the 2011 Geneva International Motor Show. The engine can be expected to be used in Ford