V12 engine for the postwar market in Europe, production of V12-engined-cars was very limited until the 1960s. Ferrari has traditionally reserved their top V12 engine for their top-of-the line luxury sports coupes since 1949. Ferrari's closest rival, Lamborghini has also used the V12 configuration for many of its road cars since the company's inception in 1963. In 1972, Jaguar introduced the XJ12, equipped with a 5.3 litre V12, which continued (after revisions in 1993) until the 1996 model year, after which the marque discontinued the twelve-cylinder engine. BMW returned to V12 designs for its 7 Series sedan in model year 1986, forcing
V12 engine the advantages of lower centers of gravity and improved pilot visibility for single-engined designs. Only the pre-war origin BMW VI V12 of Germany was an "upright" engine. The United States had the experimental Continental IV-1430 inverted V12 engine under development, with a higher power-to-weight ratio than any of the initial versions of the German WW II inverted V12s, but was never developed to production status, with only 23 examples of the Continental inverted V12 ever being built. The only American-design inverted V12 engine of any type to see even limited service in World War II was the air-cooled Ranger V-770,