Guys, Have a look at this car on eBay.
John
Guys, Have a look at this car on eBay.
John
You'd need rather more of a chassis for a Griffon, the supercharger alone would take up most of the front passenger seat area! It is a straight-forward car engine, don't know why the Griffon plate is there, probably a bit of showmanship on the part of the builder.
Might be a try-on, the photo's don't look too realistic, no background etc., and when did Toyota ever produce a separate chassis on a car? might be a pickup chassis?
Peter
-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:
The engine fitted in the car appears to be the same as that which used for the BMC/BL Vanden Plas cars of the late
1960's. The engine serial plate appears genuine but as the Griffon aero engine was a V12 it has nothing whatsoever to do with the car engine.
I wondered that but a DVLA web site enquiry lists it as a Toyota
4125cc made in 1973 so something like it exists. DVLA say it's silver but that's not an unusual change in a car's 30+ year life. SORN expires 1/8/07. I suspect the original builder, or someone in the car's life, has attached the engine plate as a joke. The present owner may not know much about that of course. I will try an enquiry to him and see.John
Agree its not a Griffon !
Its possibly a Rolls-Royce FB60 engine - as used in the Van den Plas Princess (a variant on the BMC Austin Westminster) in the early 1960s. This was a 6 pot of 4 litres, and aluminium engine based on the earlier cast iron B60 the miltary used. I had a Westminster, very strong chassis, but the bodywork rotted. The Princess probably did the same. Maybe someone saved the engine - its was a good lump, but expensive if you abused it and needed to get bits.
Steve Richardson
There was a B40 (Champ) B60 and B80, all FV specs with the B81 the last of the series and used in fire crash tenders and suchlike.
Not a bad lump to work on but with all the cast ali parts like sump and rocker cover etc must have been horrendously expensive for the companies like Austin who produced them under licence.
My old Champ (CJU394B - wonder where it is now?) was nice to run about in, lovely soft suspension but galloping fuel consumption at 5 bob a gallon!
Peter
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By complete chance, I was clearing out some magazines and came across a 2003 issue of Classic Car, with a piece on a car that had been built with a R-R Meteor V12 in it to break a series of records set many (60+) years ago by a guy called Ab Jenkins, driving "The Mormon Meteor", a special Deusenberg racer.
I remember reading the piece on the plane out to the USA that year but it didn't have any relevance at the time.
The car builder is Graham Moss, based in Sussex and testing was done at Milbrook near Ampthill, Beds.
Peter
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Did they produce them under licence or did they buy them in? Those were bigger castings though surely?, PITA with the top 3" of bore chromed which didn't help the pistons to last long.
Martin
Austin made their under licence from R-R as part of the Govt contract for the Champ. there were genuine R-R ones around as well though, my particular engine had the Austin factory plate on it.
The B60 were similarly licenced but the B80 etc were all R-R as far as I am aware.
Peter
-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:
There've been a number of cars with aero engines built over the years. ISTR there's even an owners club for such cars. Here's a Rover SD1 with a meteor engine.
John
What I meant was surely it was a smaller engine than the B60, not the same? Yes or no?
Martin
The industrial engine range was bigger physically while retaining a lot of the parts from the car IIRC.
Things like the rocker cover and sump I have already mentioned, but there was waterproof ignition, special starters and generators and so on. I don't think you'd be able to make the connection if you saw them side by side!
Peter
-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:
My feeling is that this is - as has been already mentioned - an Austin-built
4.25 litre engine from a Princess. Rolls-Royce produced an engine of this design (overhead inlet, side exhaust) immediately post war, the early engines being of 4,257cc & from 1951 there was an increase in capacity to 4,566cc. The patterns for the earlier engine were modified and considerable effort was expended in an effort to ensure that Austin-produced parts would not fit the Rolls-Royce product. The rights were then leased to Austins.Here's the nitty-gritty..........
6 cylinder in-line engine, bore x stroke 88.9 x 114.3 mm (3 1/2 x 4 1/2 in), capacity 4,257 cc (from 1951 bore x stroke 92.08 x 114.3 mm (3 5/8 x 4 1/2 in) capacity 4,566 cc); aluminium alloy cylinder head, twin SU carburettors (left-hand drive variant: single Stromberg carburettor).Oh, and a Griffon it most certainly ain't!
Regards,
J. Kim Siddorn,
Cor Kim, you're really confusing things. I followed a really nice example tonight, it was a "Vanden Plas Princess 4 litre R". Looking up the specs revealed that BMC gilded the lily somewhat as: 6-cylinder, ioe, in-line. 3,909cc, 95.25 x 91.44mm...
Tom
It seems fairly typical for these cars that those claiming to be "Merlins" were actually Meteors, and those claiming to be "Meteors" were actually Meteorites (the V8). Maybe there's a new trend emerging for "Griffons" to be the ugly old van-den-plas lumper (all the lack of charm of a B60, and fragile castings too).
Quite right Tom. Reading my posting again, I realise I didn't make it clear that Rolls-Royce reduced the capacity to 4 litres, thus shifting the stud spacing inwards (for instance) and reducing the size of the castings. They were fanatical about Austin bits ending up in Silver Wraiths and Bentley Mk VI's.
I was later a Parts Manager at the local dealership nearly twenty years after all this happened & dire imprecations were still issued by Crewe on a regular basis that we should look out for this risk!
It will amuse you all to know that I sent a modified version of my posting to the eBay vendor & received this back.
"Oh, very observant of you, well done. By a spitfire."
Dear me, what a rude fellow ;o))
Regards,
J. Kim Siddorn,
There were still some things interchangeable. We had a couple of old Austin busses converted to mobile shops and one of these had to have a new water pump from the local agents. About a week later I was in a friends garage and saw the same water pump on the floor, knowing they didn't do commercials I asked what it was off and it was off the local funeral directors Rolls hearse.
I told them it was the same as the 4 litre commercial Austin engine but they wouldn't belive me, eventually they said they'd get one to check and it was exactly the same. About 12 quid against 120 quid from RR.
-- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-
He's probably getting tired of this by now. I emailed him as well and got the reply "Very interesting"
John
The Griffon 58 was from a Shackleton I think, still it would be nice to have one of those too!
Julian.
Correct. They were fitted with a gearbox to drive the two contra-rotating props.
John
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