- Currently up for auction at Cars & Classic in the UK, “The Beast” is a one-off custom car with a 27-liter V-12 engine. Yes, twenty seven. Not a typo.
- The Beast’s owner, the late John Dodd, was legendary for his legal battles with Rolls-Royce.
- At one time, it was officially certified with a Guinness World Record as the fastest production car in the world, clocked at 183 mph.
In 1972 the most popular car in the UK was the Ford Cortina. If Mr. or Mrs. had more sporting intentions, the related Capri offered Mustang-like coupe styling, and an available 2.0-liter engine good for 86 horsepower. Imagine zipping down the M1 freeway in your new Capri, you think crack a little, when this 19-foot-long monstrosity roars past in a roar of V-12 thunder. It will be like being back in the Battle of Britain again.
In fact, it would be exactly like the Battle of Britain soundtrack, because the 1972 Beast is powered by the same Rolls-Royce engine found in the nose of a Spitfire. Its creator, the late John Dodd, died last year at the age of 90. Now his vehicle is up for auction on UK-based website Car & Classic.
The Spitfire is still considered one of the most elegant piston-engined fighter planes to take to the skies. The Beast is a more domestic affair instead, with a hood long enough that you could probably land a Spitfire on it. Or land a 747 on it. Seriously, this thing has a nose bigger than Cyrano de Bergerac’s.
Under that long hood is a Rolls-Royce-built Merlin V-12, a naturally aspirated version of the engine found in the Spitfire. The first engine in this car was obtained from a Centurion tank, and the second from a training aircraft. It displaces a whopping 27 liters and produces somewhere in the region of 700 to 800 horsepower at just 2500 rpm.
If you think this is insane, fasten up. The Beast first emerged with a box-frame construction built by that most dangerous of creatures, a British man with a shed. Paul Jameson has built several one-off cars – he once created another Merlin car, this one a six-wheeled cabriolet – and he created the Beast around a war surplus engine he got for basically scrap value. We
Dodd was an automatic transmission specialist, supplying a three-speed motor with some Jaguar parts. Later, he was surprised to receive a call from Jameson: would Dodd like to buy the rolling chassis? Dodd would, and he started to get it in fiberglass.
The finished Beast is said to have a 55:45 front-to-rear weight balance and excellent handling. That can’t possibly be entirely true, since the car is as long as an aircraft carrier, and a bare Merlin V-12 weighs more than two Chevrolet LS V-8s. Much of the information about the Beast is more speculation than specification.
However, it did receive a Guinness World Record, and it was certified by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) in 1973 as capable of hitting 183 mph. A Ferrari 365GTB/4 Daytona of the period was 10 mph slower. Take it, Enzo.
While it looked vaguely like a Capri involved in some unfortunate Willy Wonka taffy tractor accident, the Beast was a hodgepodge of parts, and one of them caused quite a stir. It wasn’t the Interceptor windshield or the Reilant Scimitar rear glass; it was Dodd’s insistence on using a Rolls-Royce grille, atop the Spirit of Ecstasy. His reasoning was: After all, Rolls-Royce built the Merlin V-12. Rolls-Royce drivers were not amused. Spirit of Ecstasy? More like Spirit of Bad Acid Trip.
Things were not improved by Dodd’s ominous provocation. He delighted in calling up Rolls HQ, pretending to be a well-heeled sort interested in buying an example of the long-nosed coupe that had just gone by at high speed. Rolls-Royce deployed the lawyers.
Dodd rode the Beast to every day of the trial, except for one time when he arrived on horseback with his entire family. He lost, and the court decided to impose punitive damages. Dodd jumped into the Beast and raced off to Malaga, Spain, where he rebuilt his automatic transmission business and generally seems to have had a great time in a sunny climate.
The Beast has lost its Rolls-Royce grille for one with John Dodd’s initials, although it’s still titled as a Rolls-Royce (this will no doubt please Dodd). It has just over 10,000 miles on it, which isn’t surprising for a car that would struggle to get 2 mpg.
For one lucky bidder, the Beast represents the pinnacle of British automotive eccentricity. It’s just a completely ridiculous car, too big, too thirsty and too silly. And yet it is also extremely funny and constructed to ridicule the rules by a man who lived to a ripe old age thumbing his nose at the authorities. John Dodd could have bought himself a Capri. Thank goodness he didn’t.
The auction takes place on March 9 and will be streamed on the Car & Classic website.
Contributing Editor
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, BC, Canada. He grew up with his knuckles on British cars, came of age in the golden age of Japanese sport-compact performance, and started writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, be it the races. career of Walter Cronkite or the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to constantly buy Hot Wheels.
