JOHN DODD'S "THE BEAST" ANY INFO?

[Stifla]

Hi all,just wondering,i know some of you out there are old enough to probably remember this.....

My dad used to tell me about a car that was built by dj john dodd,i think back in the seventies.
He just found some of the old photo's he had of it and it got my inquisitive side out agian....
It always fascinated me when he told me about it,he said it had six slim rectangular tailpipes and looked like a capri with a stretched bonnet!

Basically the car was built around a 28-litre Spitfire Merlin v12 engine,with a specially-built auto-transmission and a one off body.

I know that in its first guise it actually caught fire,apparently when he was being chased by police or something,and then was re-built with a really ugly body,including eight headlights and other daft stuff like that.

I know that there was a big court case about the fact he had mounted a modified rolls-royce grill on the front.


Love the polished slot-mags in fact I kinda like it from this angle,in a strecthed capri-kinda way!


These are the photo's my dad turfed out today.




Love it or hate it you have to admit that its quite a piece of kit,bet it handled like a barge!
Was fairly nippy in a straight line though according to my dad.......

[MikeWarner]

Probably ran without the superchargers found on the Spitfires. Still would be around 1500bhp mind.

[Stifla]

Yea im pretty sure it wasnt blown it was just normally aspirated,but even so like you say,1500 brake is still 1500 brake!

It would be nice if i anyone could tell me if it is still in one piece or if it is on show somewhere,its got to be in some museum somewhere gathering dust,or so id like to think!

[MikeWarner]

I have heard about a different car with the same engine. Apparently at full throttle the tranmission would fail. There was nothing strong enough at the time to take the power, so, full throttle could not be used.

[MikeWarner]

I found this on my HD

[Rob_S]

was an old rolls, couldnt get full throttle or it would rip apart

[Stifla]

man thats gotta have been really scary,imagine 1500bhp through crossplies! lmao

[John Z]

I remember that car! Had pictures of both versions of it on my bedroom wall. The first did catch fire & Rolls Royce did get upset about his use of one of their radiators, especially when he added insult to injury by hacking it about to reduce its height. I seem to remeber he had trouble buying the rad as he didn't have a car for which it was needed as a replacement & had to pay stupid money for it. But he could afford it anyway.

Tried searching the net for more info?

[Stifla]

yea did try searching a bit but all i could find were those two b&w photos on one page,i would have thought there was more about it somewhere surely?

[Stifla]

I remember that car! Had pictures of both versions of it on my bedroom wall.

Mate,what pictures have you got of it?

[John Z]

Mate,what pictures have you got of it?

Haven't got em anymore. Twas years ago.

[John Z]

Some more info:

"In the 1960s John Dodd of Kent, England put a Merlin engine (some say it actually was a Rover Meteor tank engine, but then this is a Merlin minus superchargers) in a car called "The Beast". Originally it had a grille from a Rolls Royce, but after complaints from them he had to change it. According to himself he once drove by a Porsche driver on the autobahn and this person then called Rolls Royce asking about their "new model". The Beast was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most powerful road car. The engine came from a Boulton Paul Balliol training aircraft and gave 1262 bhp (941 kW) at 8500 feet (2,600 m). In the car the supercharger was removed so it "only" gave about 850 bhp (630 kW). The chassis was custom made with a fibreglass body and used a gearbox from a GM 400. The car was later restored by John Dodd's son Paul Dodd and he also has a 2050 bhp (1530 kW) twin-supercharged Rolls-Royce Griffon 37 litre engine from a late-model Spitfire he is willing to put in a car if somebody would be interested in buying it."

[Colonel K]

Yeah I remember this as well. Was on UK TV at one point and someone drove it.

That was years ago on Top Gear I think..... maybe....

[Violet]

I remember that car! Had pictures of both versions of it on my bedroom wall.

Did you have regular nightmares? That eight headlight pic is horrific!!!

I like the way he says he put a Spitfire engine in it. People must have asked him from a Triumph spitfire. His response, 'no, a SPITFIRE.' lmao

[BazW]

Yeah I remember this as well. Was on UK TV at one point and someone drove it.

That was years ago on Top Gear I think..... maybe....

it was tiff needel driving it did summat like 200 mph with no seatbelts fitted to it

[mystery machine]

a bloke i used to know from 'bromley brakes' had some gen on it iirc.

[dogsy]

i was working for a guy a few months ago and he was telling me about this car. apparently its the same guy who started Peco exhausts (well Peco Acoustics origionally). he now lives over in Holland and is getting on quite a bit. couldnt say its 100% true but the guy i was working for seemed to know him quite well in the 70's (working in the same field of work or something) and John Dodd was absolutely mad, would try anything to see if it works.

[Aamir]

http://www.theminifarm.com/john_dodd.htm

[rodgerq]

funny this has come up. i was talkin to the mechanic in work the other day and he mentioned about this car. it was just when the court was mentioned here it twigged. bloody mental

rodgerq

[mattc]

Strange one but look in todays Mirrior (the newspaaper, before I get any funny joke) there is a small artical on Richard Hammonds motoring page about it in there.

[GlasgowRob]

850 brake pah

[gkkes]

My mate Tony Lauder used to live opposite John Dodds house in Links Road, Epsom during the 70's. I saw the car often, as it wouldn't fit in the garage. The back end used to stick out from under the door.

Whenever he fired it up we would go out into the road and watch, sometimes he was just moving it, other times he went off in a cloud of smoke. It would do 70mph in reverse.

He was an independent Rolls Royce gearbox specialist (That's what was on the side of his van anyway). The original body was Ford Capri, and was really rough inside, the re-incarnation (after the fire) I think was from a Scimitar, also glass fibre.

The pics above were taken at Santa Pod, I was there and couldn't believe the distortion of the chassis as he gave it full power - great sound though.

Good Luck
Kev

[willisit]

I saw that a few times at the Guildford cruise. A complete beast - the noise and smoke it produced was unbelievable.

It even had the priming switches inside (same as the spitfire) to get the engine ready to fire up! Mental thing - hideous too

[MartG]

I saw some styling drawings in a magazine when he was building the second one which looked rather gorgeous - unfortunately he decided to go for the 'ugliest car in the world' body instead.

[JohnA]

That engine would fly in a Nova