Leno drops a Merlin in a 1930 Bentley (video, 12:29)

Well Jay didn't drop anything. It was built by someone else. Its as much of a Bentley as my Ford truck.

And the motor with the prop gear reduction unit and 2 stage supercharger installed is 1600lbs. It was famous for being 1lb per HP in ready to run condition for an airplane.


Waste of a perfectly good Merlin.

 

This car was in Top Gear. It does not have a supercharger. I read about a "Rolls Royce" with a proper Merlin engine that has a supercharger and some 1100hp

 

Double espresso says this is not even a Merlin; rather it's a Meteor, a quite detuned version of the basic RR 12 cyl. design. Typically found in period in armored scout cars and small tanks. 650 hp was normal, without the supercharger and with a single carb. 1200 - 1400 lbs. without all the aero bits.

 

What a neat car !
I smiled through the whole thing.

Years back Dennis Simanaitis (Sp ?) did a story in Road and track of some huge engined cars like this including a Mercedes Blitzen Benz and Napier-Railton.
The Napier was polished aluminum. Nummm...

 

It was built by a company called Bob Petersen Engineering in the UK. They take boring 1940's, 1950's era Bentley's and turn them into cars Bentley likely would have built if they didn't get taken over by Rolls Royce. Really Bentley's under Roll Royce are mostly Rolls Royce's with a Bentley badge. I like their rebodies. Someone in my neighborhood has one, amazing craftsmanship. The only thing not Bentley on most of their creations is the body, rest is all Bentley/Rolls Royce.

Leno's car here: Bob Petersen Engineering | Custom vintage coachbuilt cars | Devon UK

the car in my neighborhood: Bob Petersen Engineering | Custom vintage coachbuilt cars | Devon UK

I want one.

 

This one makes me smile through the whole thing, what an amazing amazing car!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0HXxGjlIag

 

Interesting!

Can anyone confirm a half-truth / automobile folklore?

In the late 1980's, I was told a story about a man in a Ferrari 512 Boxer on the Autobahn, pushed it to top speed while a Rolls Royce passed him like he was standing still. Down the road, the Boxer driver met up at a fuel station with the Rolls Royce owner. When asked what he had in the Rolls, the owner replied, "A Rolls Royce"(aircraft) engine. I didn't put much stock in the story, seemed odd why anyone would dump an aircraft engine into a classic Rolls. Why would anything [supposedly] that heavy, fly down the Autobahn at high speed? It was the late 80's, we didn't have internet to confirm such stories and not very many people knew squat about high end exotics anyways, other than they looked hot. So I blew the story off.

...seeing THIS thread, was something of this sort created then?

 

There is a Rolls with a Merlin engine, www.supercars dot net/cars/4769.html


For some reason the forum does not accept the URL?