France
French-made vehicles after the Second World War in particular have had very small engines relative to vehicle size. The very small Citroën 2CV for example has a 425 cc two-cylinder engine that weighs only 100 pounds (45 kg), and at the opposite extreme, the high-end Citroën SM has a still modest 2,700 cc six-cylinder engine that weighs only 300 pounds (140 kg).
In France, fiscal horsepower survives. However, in 1956 it was redefined: the formula became more complicated but now it took account of cylinder stroke and of cylinder bore, so that there was no longer any fiscal advantage in producing engines with thin cylinders. The dirigiste approach of the French government nevertheless continued to encourage manufacturers to build cars with small engines, and French motorists to buy them. The 1958 French fiscal horsepower formula also took account of engine speed, measured in rpm. The government modified the fiscal horsepower formula again in 1978 and in 1998. Since 1998 the taxable horsepower is calculated from the sum of a CO2 emission figure (over 45), and the maximum power output of the engine in kilowatts (over 40) to the power of 1.6.
Read more about this topic: Tax Horsepower
Famous quotes containing the word france:
““Eh Bien you like this sacred pig of a country?” asked Marco.
“Why not? I like it anywhere. It’s all the same, in France you are paid badly and live well; here you are paid well and live badly.””
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Intellectuals can tell themselves anything, sell themselves any bill of goods, which is why they were so often patsies for the ruling classes in nineteenth-century France and England, or twentieth-century Russia and America.”
—Lillian Hellman (1907–1984)
“America was too big to have been discovered all at one time. It would have been better for the graces if it had been discovered in pieces of about the size of France or Germany at a time.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)