"Beasts" and "Torpedoes" - aircraft engines in passenger cars

The legendary British WWII fighter Spitfire was equipped with a Merlin engine from the equally famous Rolls-Royce company. How Paul Jameson came up with the idea of ​​sticking an airplane engine into a car body is not known for certain. However, in the 60s, he managed to develop and create a chassis based on the Jaguar XJ12 limousine, connecting it to the chassis of the Austin A110 Westminster. But then things slowed down: it took a transmission that could work in tandem with a 1000-horsepower 27-liter (power, however, later reduced to 800 hp) engine.

New owner of The Beast

Jameson turned to John Dodd, who was in charge of an automatic transmission repair shop. An experienced transmission worker caught fire with the idea and things went well. Dodd from the GM TH400 automatic transmission built just the right thing.


He strengthened the box, changed its gear ratios, taking into account the low speed of the unit (idle was 120 rpm.). In the process of developing the transmission, the owner of the car, Jameson, lost interest in his brainchild and sold it to Dodd.


The latter, without thinking twice, gave the car the nickname The Beast, which means "The Beast".

First option

There is a chassis, a transmission too, but there was no body. It was made from fiberglass. The result was something reminiscent of the popular Ford Capri at the time. Dodd stuck a Rolls-Royce grille onto the radiator, which subsequently brought him a lot of funny problems, but more on that later.


Unfortunately, the finished car burned down during a fire in the garage. But its new owner, not particularly upset (only the body suffered), turned to specialists, and a new car was built for him. Now it's a coupe. But the surviving ill-fated radiator grille was put back in place by the designer!

Rolls-Royce offended

John loved to “walk” his “Beast” on the German autobahns in the morning, shocking respectable burghers hurrying to work. I must say, Dodd was distinguished by a cheerful disposition and once, effortlessly "made" the owner of a Porsche, moving at a speed of 230 km / h.


The stunned German officially turned to Rolls-Royce to find out everything about their "new model". Representatives of the company were extremely upset: some madman on a rocket with wheels would discredit their company.

More about speed

After the trial, John carried out a "restyling" and updated the front of the car, on which he continued to ride on the autobahns, giving rise to legends about his monster.


Fans of high-speed driving morally had a hard time when their "Lamborghini", "Ferrari", "Porsche", traditionally dominating in the left lane, went around with a roar, "like standing" some kind of yellow "barn". If you calculate the maximum speed theoretically, according to the parameters of the engine, gear ratios of the box, it should be more than 430 km / h. But this is without aerodynamics and other factors not taken into account. In reality, Dodd still accelerated to 300 km / h, and more than once.

Design

This is a V-shaped unit with twelve cylinders, each of which has a pair of candles and four valves. In the cylinder head - two camshafts, with a maximum power of 850 (according to other sources 1000) l. With. the unit reached 2500 rpm. The automatic transmission lubrication system was made “wet”. As for fuel consumption, almost a liter of 95th gasoline per kilometer Beast bursts. Accordingly, the tank of the car is capacious - 120 liters. Indeed: a beast, not a machine!


The length of only one hood was three meters! It's about the size of an Oka. How Dodd parked in the city is not clear at all, especially considering that the monster did not have power steering.


In the cabin, the front panel with many toggle switches is of interest. This is for starting an aircraft engine, which takes longer to start than an automobile internal combustion engine.


Instead of a "boring" ignition key or "Start" button, there are separate toggle switches for power supply, activation of fuel pumps, a generator and other units - everything is like in an airplane. There are separate switches for the radiator fan and other devices.

Afterword

The Beast owner himself, who literally put his soul into the Beast, recently died at the age of 80. However, his four-wheeled creation feels great and the car that makes the sound of a fighter can still be found on the roads (according to some sources, the “super car” is now in Spain), although it is driven by the designer’s son, Paul Dodd.


But what about automakers? After all, Beast is essentially a homemade product. There were also attempts to use an aircraft engine for the production of mass-produced machines, and one of them should be discussed separately.

Tucker Torpedo

"The car of the future - today!". This was the motto of the owner of a small car company, Preston Tucker, an American engineer. After the war in 1945, a "stagnation" formed in the global automotive market: large manufacturers could only offer boring models of the 30s. So smaller and more mobile firms ready to restructure have a chance.


The car created by Tucker was primarily striking in its design: everything that moved along the roads next to it resembled a horse-drawn gig against the background of a modern car. But it was not only about the cool design: the engineer for the first time proposed new safety features, for the absence of which the American auto industry was scolded by everyone and sundry. Namely:

✅ disc brakes
✅ glass that shatters into harmless shards
✅ improved visibility due to a change in body structure
✅ periscope (prototype of rear view camera)
✅ photocells that automatically turn on the headlights when it gets dark
✅ indication of instrument readings on the windshield (!)
✅ power frame of the body, which increases the chances of passengers to survive in a collision
✅ seat belts

By the way, the latter were removed before the release of mass-produced cars so as not to ... scare away customers. But still: with such options, the car looked like an alien from the future.

Technical specifications

The body in terms of aerodynamics was quite perfect. The engine is boxer (the pistons “walk” towards each other), six-cylinder, from a Bell helicopter with a volume of 9,65 liters. "Hundred" the car gained in 10 seconds, and the maximum speed was 190 km / h. The length of the car reached 5,56 m. The cost was also rather big for those times - $ 2450. Tucker planned to produce 300 thousand pieces of equipment per year.

Crash

The largest automakers in the United States drew attention to the innovative car, which could not allow an unknown loner to break into the car market. In addition, he violated all his laws by releasing a fundamentally new car at once, and not gradually offering more and more advanced models in order to extort maximum money from buyers.


In the end, Tucker managed to produce 51 cars, only a few remained “alive” and are highly valued by collectors. The designer himself died of cancer, and at his company, which had gone to the state for debts, they began to make engines for bombers: the war in Korea began.

Results

The idea of ​​using aircraft engines in the automotive industry haunts inventors, both large and small, to this day. True, these are no longer "purely" aircraft engines, but gas turbine units specially designed for cars. This idea is also not widely accepted. However, attempts to connect the car and aircraft in any way continue and we can say: today such projects are on the rise in the form of quadrocopters, "air taxis", "city planes", VTOL, etc.