1) lets the engine have high compression AND a turbo. Typically a turbo is run with lower compression, because even today nobody can make an engine run 14:1 with a turbo. Speculating, when you floor it the compression might drop to 8:1 and the turbo kicks in; then when you highway cruise, it runs 14:1 for efficiency.
2) lets the little engine still hit big torque numbers at low speeds. This is most likely if the engine is variable stroke, as longer strokes improve low speed torque.
Ahhhh, those both make a lot of sense. This could be a nice feature on higher-end cars that try to use smaller engines, with more turbos, for the sake of fuel and emissions then?
