‘If you have to ask why I did it,’ says PPC’s Charlie Broomfield, ‘you’re never going to get it.’ We don’t care why he did it, we’re just very glad he did. The engine is a Rover Meteor – the non- supercharged version of the Rolls Royce Merlin that powered many British World War 2 aircraft, such as the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster.
It took Charlie two years of work just to rebuild the engine (he had to make his own big end bearing shells) and get the engine suitable for a car. Obviously when we say ‘suitable,’ we use the term with a degree of flexibility.
The engine drives a GM TH400 autobox from a V12 Jag via a planetary gearset from a Leyland Leopard bus, which increases the output speed three times while reducing torque by a similar amount. No – I’m not making this up.
Charlie’s made his own fuel injection system (obviously) and the car can also run on LPG. On a trip to the Nürburgring last summer the Rover averaged an inceridble15.8mpg on gas, making it cheaper to run than the original SD1 3.5-litre V8. Charlie’s just made new exhaust manifolds and you can see how they work out in PPC magazine.
