Perhaps at some point in the distant past you heard about a Rolls-Royce that was powered by a massive aero engine and would spit fire from its exhausts as it carved up traffic at double the speed limit on British motorways.
Now, this mad creation is set to be sold by Historics Auctions in England – but just what is it exactly, and how did it come to be?
Based on an earlier design from the 1960s powered by a military tank engine, this custom-built shooting brake was constructed in 1972. Given half its length is occupied by a mammoth 27-litre V12 Rolls-Royce Merlin engine and it’s known as ‘The Beast’, it unsurprisingly looks unlike anything else on the road.
It was created some years after its owner, John Dodd, first came into contact with The Beast’s creator. He was another Brit, Paul Jameson, who had been looking for someone to design a transmission that could deal reliably with the prodigious torque of the Meteor tank engine in the earlier car.
Dodd was an engineer specialising in transmissions and relished the challenge. He adapted a GM400 three-speed automatic – coincidentally used by Rolls-Royce at the time – and continued making refinements for years after.
In 1971 he bought the tank-powered chassis from Jameson, fitting it with its original ‘Mark I’ body used it as regular transport at home in the UK and throughout Europe. On one occasion, he was clocked by police at over 150mph on a UK motorway and only stopped when forced to by a roadblock.
He also endured many years of legal wrangling with Rolls-Royce over the car’s use of a Silver Shadow grille and Spirit of Ecstasy mascot. After spending an estimated £30,000 in legal fees and fines, the contentious items were removed, but only until Dodd relocated to Spain where the law seemed more favourable to his cause.
The car was damaged by fire in 1974 and, using the insurance payout, Dodd rebuilt it by fitting the Merlin engine and a new ‘Mark II’ body produced by Fiber Glass Repairs of Bromley to the surviving chassis. It has survived in this form for over 50 years, being featured in numerous magazine articles and television programmes since.
In revised Merlin-powered form, the car reached a top speed of 183mph (295km/h), with that figure verified by Britain’s Royal Automobile Club and the Guinness Book of Records. It was also timed at 170km/h while towing a caravan on a race circuit, a speed its owner claimed to regularly exceed when towing on European motorways.
The original Jameson design used a Rolls-Royce Meteor engine, but Dodd installed a V12 Merlin piston engine like that powering WWII Spitfire fighter aircraft. This engine was said to produce around 635kW but with plenty of scope for improvement. As supplied to the RAF, a Merlin in basic form was rated at 850kW while supercharged versions could, for brief periods, produce 1500kW.
The body, with its ultra-long engine bay, was originally fashioned around the remains of a Ford Capri, but when this version was damaged by fire after acquisition by Dodd it was rebodied in the style of a two-door ‘shooting brake’ with a rear hatch and plentiful boot space behind the seats.
Under its most recent ownership, Dodd’s design has been handsomely wrapped in shades of metallic grey and retains its Rolls-Royce grille and emblem. The original pale-yellow paint is said to remain largely undamaged beneath the wrap.
It has also undergone what was described in the auction catalogue as a “much needed retrim which has been done to a very good standard, giving the interior a smart and comfortable feeling”.
John Dodd died in 2022 and the car since then has been in the keeping of another sympathetic enthusiast who has entrusted London-based Historics Auctioneers to sell the car.
It has been listed with a Guiding Range of £75,000 to £100,000 and will be sold on November 29 during a sale which also includes the Wolfrace Sonic.
This six-wheeled design, powered by a pair of Rover V8 engines, was created in 1981 to showcase its creators’ new range of alloy wheels. If anything can overshadow The Beast as it slouches towards the Historics auction rostrum, this could be it.
All lots from The Brooklands Velocity sale, including The Beast, are able to be viewed on the Historics Auctioneers website.
