The second day of the three-day Engine Expo continued its busy pace with morning meetings with engineering teams with one of the world’s largest automotive manufacturers and continued at the booth engaging the hundreds of attendees that streamed through the expo.

Visitors spent long periods of time watching the German and English editions of the Air-Hybrid Technology DVD and pouring through the Theory of Operation literature. Many of the automotive engineers and press were impressed with the break-through air-hybrid designs and the preliminary water injection capabilities featured in the literature.

Crowds gather around to check out BMW’s 3-Liter Twin Turbo (335i) that won this year’s International Engine of the Year 2007 Award

The highlight of Day Two of the Expo was the world-renowned International of the Year Awards. They are the most coveted honors in the engineering design field and typically give winners a wealth of promotional ammunition for televison commercials, brochures and other consumer marketing initiatives. Today, BMW took a total of seven award tophies, including the big International Engine of the Year Award 2007 for its 3-liter Twin Turbo (335i). The Munich-based company took additonal awards for its 2.5-liter inline six and 5-liter V10, but was most delighted with the success of the 3-liter twin turbo, which also dominated the Best New Engine of 2007 category.

“This is a tremendous achievement and important recognition of the lengths our engineers have gone to in order to ensure the success of our turbocharged [gasoline] engines,” said Peter Langen, BMW’s director of powertrain. “We are proud to once again be honored as the manufacturer of the International Engine of the Year.”

Also picking up an award was Porsche, which finally won an international Engine of the Year Award trophy. It’s 3.6-liter turbo engine in the 911 Turbo was voted the best 3-liter to 4-liter engine in production today. Toyota also took honors in the Best Fuel Economy category for its 1.5-liter Hybrid Synergy Drive (Prius).

“A hybrid engine winning the Best Fuel Economy category shows us here at the Scuderi Group that our technology will be in a good position to compete for future Engine of the Year awards,” said Lutz Deyerling, vice president of European operations for the Scuderi Group.