This is the World’s Smallest Functional V-12 Engine

You’d never guess it judging by the collection of tiny, intricate works of kinetic art on display in his workshop, but José Manuel Hermo Barreiro, a.k.a. "Patelo," claims to be a "very impatient person." A retired naval mechanic, Patelo continues to create after his contemporaries have ditched their tools for the last time, trading the industrial-size marine equipment of his working years for the small-scale precision engines seen in the video below, including what Patelo believes is the smallest V-12 engine in the world. Only when he balances a coin on its side atop the V-12 is its diminutive size put in perspective.

Patelo’s creations made the rounds in the internet’s geekiest corners a couple of years ago—yes, we hang out there sometimes—but we rediscovered them and had to share. The engines run only on compressed air, but that does nothing to diminish the remarkable feat of constructing a fully operational engine on this scale from scratch.

As for Patelo’s claim that it is the smallest V-12 in the world, he concedes with a hint of pride that he has no internet connection and doesn’t know how to "surf the web." Indeed, a quick search will turn up a few practitioners of the art, including a fully operational V-8 engine or two—and then there’s this gas-burning 6.09-cubic-inch V-8 we covered in great detail last year—but our efforts failed to find a tinier V-12.