One of the most famous creations to spring from the UK’s vibrant 1970s custom scene is heading for auction. Listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the planet’s most powerful road car in 1977 and capable of outrunning contemporary Ferraris and Lamborghinis in its heyday, the bizarre-looking shooting brake was a regular in car books and magazines and even hit the mainstream press when it became the focal point of a court case brought by Rolls Royce.
It’s known as ‘The Beast,’ which isn’t only appropriate because of how it looks. Underneath that huge hood is a 27-liter V12 Rolls Royce Merlin engine most famous for its use, in a slightly different form, in the Superman Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighters that defeated the German Luftwaffe in the 1940 Battle of Britain.
The story starts in the mid-1960s when Paul Jameson fitted a Meteor V12 tank engine to a custom chassis. But needing a suitable gearbox to send around 750 hp (760 PS) and 760 lb-ft (1,030 Nm) to the rear wheels, Jameson contacted automatic transmission specialist John Dodd, who later took over the project, fitting it with a custom body that made it look like the world’s ugliest Ford Capri.
That original body was destroyed in a fire, so the car was rebuilt with a new body and a new engine, the Meteor V12 from the tank being swapped for a genuine V12 Merlin aero engine, minus the airplane’s supercharger. And that’s pretty much how it survives to this day, with one major exception.
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Dodd decided the presence of the Rolls Royce engine justified the fitment of a Rolls Royce grille, but Rolls disagreed and a court case followed in which Dodd whipped up a ton of publicity, first by driving The Beast to court in central London, and later in the trial by turning up on a white horse after the judge accused him of having a ‘cavalier attitude.’
Dodd lost the case and took himself and the car to Spain, later swapping the Rolls Royce grille for a custom one decorated with his own initials. But with eight headlights, yellow paint and a body that looks like it was designed for a hearse in a hurry, losing the grille hardly made The Beast any less eye-catching.
Unfortunately, Dodd died last year, but the car lives on and is ready for a new owner with a listing scheduled on the Car & Classic auction site for March 9. The original car was officially timed at 183 mph (295 km/h) in the early 1970s but no one really knows for sure how much power it makes or how fast it can go in its current form. None of that really matters anyway. It’s simply a crazy car with an even crazier story that will never fail to draw a crowd. Oh yeah, and though Rolls Royce forced Dodd to remove the grille, it’s still registered as a Rolls Royce. Which leads us to ask the only obvious question: this, or a new Spectre EV? [Of course this! -Ed.]
