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O/T Merlins


pompei

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I was driving up from Lincoln to Horncastle yesterday evening, and I heard the loudest engine EVAR - looked up and there was what I think was a Lancaster bomber at about 200 feet above me. Does anyone know whether I was hallucinating, or is there a Lancaster based around here? Whatever it was it sounded AWESOME.

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Ah, thanks, that would explain it. It really did sound amazing.I recall once reading that some looney fitted a Spifire engine into a car, which I can only presume would have been a truly deafening experience.

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I remember it well- built by a chap called John Dodds- looked veguely like a Capri on Steroids! Think it caught fire and burnt out, as it was a fibregalss body. Also, Merlins, Griffons and Alisons are very popular with the tractor pulling set, and make a truly awesome spectacle!

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The John Dodds "Capri" was rebuilt after the fire as a sort of estate car.

 

More recently somebody fitted one to a Rover SD1. It's got its own section on this forum.

If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it was physically possible to fit an engine that size into an SD1- or any other normally proportioned car!! Look at the length of the bonnet of John Dodds' monster!

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Didn't run with a RR grill at one stage before they got upset? Or is that a urban legend?

Certainly remember a Top Gear mag item on the car saying that Rolls got uppity and alluded to legal action :lol:
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Didn't run with a RR grill at one stage before they got upset? Or is that a urban legend?

Certainly remember a Top Gear mag item on the car saying that Rolls got uppity and alluded to legal action :lol:
Actually that would have been my BBC2 Top Gear item on 'The Beast' complete with a ptc ( or 'piece to camera' as we say in the business we call 'show') delivered from the back of a white horse recreating the incident in which John Dodds arrived at court on horseback after the judge (Rolls Royce were suing him for 'passing off') accused him of having 'a cavalier attitude'.

 

I drove it on the runway at Duxford the noise of the fuel pumps priming was almost as awesome as the engine (which wasn't a proper Merlin but the iron-block tank engine of a similar design). Couldn't say the same of the brakes though - which were borrowed from an Austin Westminster!

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I could have sworn I saw one in the distance somewhere near Chester last Friday afternoon. Too far away to hear the engines but looked very much like a Lancaster.I was gutted to miss the flypast at the Derwent reservoir last Month, had no idea it was happening. :(

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Ref grille, yes, it did have an RR grille, until the miserable gits at Crewe threatened legal action. The Meteor lump in the SDi [Practical Performance] is a work of art, although it seems to have been a bit of a struggle getting a gearbox/torque convertor to cope...................

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I was gutted to miss the flypast at the Derwent reservoir last Month, had no idea it was happening. :(

Ditto. Expect they kept the publicity low so as not have thousands of people trying to get to a good photographic vantage point.
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