Here’s the latest astonishing work of art by José Manuel Hermo Barreiro, known to the world simply as Patelo: a working, palm-sized W32 engine. Watch this stunning and moving video. 

If you visit Mac’s Motor City Garage, you know about the work of Patelo, known to his mother as José Manuel Hermo Barreiro. We’ve featured the amazing miniature engines of this retired Spanish naval engineer several times: See our previous items on his world’s smallest V12 and his pocket-sized radial engine.

Art as much as craft, Patelo’s engines are more precisely described as working rather than running models. That is, they are propelled by compressed air, which lends his designs an ethereal, expressionist quality. These miniatures are more than engines, somehow. More like tiny masterpieces.

This latest engine is a W32, in other words four banks of eight cylinders on a common crankshaft. The construction involved 850 components, 632 screws and fasteners, and 2520 hours of Patelo’s doting hand labor. “I have no patience at all. I’m a very impatient person. I do this because I love it,” he says. He dedicates this engine to all his friends and followers of Motores Patelo around the world. Now watch this.