Personally, I'm an inline-6 guy for gas engines too. Mrs. NVD's Jeep Cherokee has the 4.0L I-6, and it is a torque-producing little engine that runs like a champ.

For zippy performance with a low hood profile, Plymouth/Chrysler handled the hood profile with their "slant six" 225 engine. I remember that engine in a Plymouth Barracuda as a kid. That car up and moved pretty good.

It just seems to me that the I-6's that Detroit has put out in gas engines worked pretty doggone well, leaving me with the impression that the whole V-8 thing is mostly marketing now. Detroit has so much invested in marketing such twaddle as "hemi," "V-8" and now "V-10" engines that crowd the sides of the engine compartment so tightly you can't get a feeler gauge in there.

When I look at vehicle offerings around the world, it is pretty clear that Detroit has V-type engines on the brain, whereas the Japanese  and Germans like inline engines.