This bizarre classic uses almost 600 liters of gasoline per hour

If you really give The Beast, as the vehicle is called, a run for its money, it uses about 590 liters of petrol per hour. Although we have to admit that that’s a rough estimate, since the car’s 27-liter supercharged V12 actually belongs on an airplane.

Most famous fighter aircraft

The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a legendary power source that served in the Second World War in, among others, the bomber Avro Lancaster and two of the best-known fighter aircraft: the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire.

Tokkie mode! Porsche comes with the most anti-social driving assistant ever

Homemade classic

How did the engine end up in a car? We have the British transmission builder John Dodd to thank for this. In the early 1970s, they connected the Merlin to a gearbox of its own design, which could handle the enormous torque of the aircraft power source.

The combination was placed on a special chassis designed by British engineer Paul Jameson in the late 1960s, originally for a Rolls-Royce Meteor tank engine. An almost 5.8 meter long, two-door fiberglass body was placed on top.

At 290 km/h on the Autobahn

It is not officially known how much power the Merlin in The Beast produces. Estimates range from 750 to 850 hp. Dodd would in the 1970s on the German autobahn have reached a speed of 290 km/h with his creation.

Because yes, The Beast is street legal. For example, Dodd at one point moved from the United Kingdom to Spain, where he used his enormous shooting brake on public roads near Malaga. Although the device is not easy to drive.

Classic now under the hammer

The current owner of the machine has it wrapped in gray (it’s actually yellow). We see that too the original Rolls-Royce grille has been reset. It has been gone for decades. The interior has recently been reupholstered.

The Beast – which amazingly has some 17,700 kilometers on the odometer – will be auctioned at Historics Auctioneers on November 29. The expected yield is not very high. Because for ‘only’ 85,000 to 113,000 euros you can acquire a truly unique piece of automotive history. Although, piece… Piece!