Air, land, sea – no matter where you need pistons pumping upwards of 2,000 horsepower, this Rolls Royce Griffon 74 can do the job with incredible performance. Well, not in its current state, as it’s on a rolling display stand. Still, this 37-liter V12 is a notable piece of aeronautic and nautical history. Now, it can be yours so long as you’re willing to spend more on it than a brand-new and tricked-out Mazda Miata.
Rolls Royce originally designed the engine for aircraft in World War II, and the Griffon powered such machines as the Supermarine Spitfire Mk 24, Bristol Beaufighter, and Avro Shackleton . If you’ve heard of the famous Rolls Royce Merlin engine, consider the Griffon to be an even larger version of that. This particular example also has factory-installed fuel injection and a two-stage (you read that right) supercharger. Production ran from the early 1940s through 1955.
Some examples, like this one, were evidently built as spares. What does one do with a 37-liter V12 that no longer needs to defend the skies against the Axis powers? We’ve come up with some ideas, but before we get to that, you should know why this one says “Miss Budweiser” on the valve covers.
That nomenclature dates back to the 1980s when someone prepped this engine for use in a hydroplane. Although it evidently never saw action, it’s clearly painted for the job. According to the seller over on Bring A Trailer, the Miss Budweiser hydroplane won 22 races between 1980 and 1984 with a nearly identical engine:
The Griffon is reputed to have 1000 more horsepower than the Rolls-Royce Merlin, which was the standard engine at the time in the Unlimited Class. Miss Budweiser ‘Juggernaut’ took first place in its first twenty heats of competition, erasing the former standard of fifteen consecutive heat wins.
Here’s a quick example of what it looked and sounded like back in 1985:
In short, the Griffon now up for sale was initially meant to go to war but ended up in line to be a dominant force in hydroplane racing. By 1985, the racing team moved on and this 37-liter V12 remains unused. The current owner bought it in 2022 and hasn’t done much with it since. The real question for whoever buys it is what to do with it now.
Our staff took turns deciding what might be best and there are some fabulous answers here. That said, nobody was as bold as Griffin Riley, who proposed that this become the basis for the most extreme racing lawnmower possible. Frankly, I think it might stretch the wheelbase a bit too much but that doesn’t mean that I don’t wanna see it.
SWG who is very much alive and well had maybe one of the most altruistic and beautiful takes possible. “Those Budweiser valve cover gaskets are killer. I’d use it to pull a team of Clydesdales as they relax on a pulled trailer with some delicious hay.” Those horses are working hard pretty much every time we see them so why not give them a break and let Miss Budweiser do the work for a change?
Finally, our (mostly) behind-the-scenes graphics and production guy Peter Vieira might have the best fantasy application overall, as he would take this aircraft engine turned boat motor and return it somewhat closer to air duty by strapping it into a belly-tank-bodied salt-flats racer. As an example, Pete posted the gorgeous speed seeker below, a creation of the watch company Bell & Ross.
Why not? If Jay Leno can drive a tank-car why can’t we have a Rolls Royce airplane boat car? Perhaps one could even add bespoke titanium marshmallow skewers, as startup can apparently be a bit roasty:
Here’s another great example of a Griffon firing up, complete with a few throttle blips. Note just how much air is flooding back toward the operator here, from contra-rotating props no less:
What would you do with something this large, this powerful, and this important to the history of speed both in the air and on the water? Let us know in the comments below and if you happen to have Mazda Miata money lying around, you might want to have a crack at the auction over on Bring A Trailer.
I rode in the Miss Budweiser…on a trailer in a parade. My dad was an Anheuser-Busch distributor in a small town.
This dates me, but as a kid my dad took me to the detroit hydro races, and by then, all of the main teams had switched to gas turbines….except for one team lone team, still soldiering on with a piston based engine, pretty much this engine. It was raced by Jerry Hopp, who was a great guy, the whole team was cool, I think I was 8 years old or so, have pics of sitting in the cockpit. Definitely a core memory, and a few years ago I got curious, and man, this is the best website ever dedicated to restoring Hopp’s old boat, check it out:
https://79squireshop.weebly.com/obtaining-the-squire-shop.html
Be sure to check it out in detail, there are so many cool stories here, like when they hired scuba divers to retrieve the cowl that flew off teh boat and sank to the bottom of the river and stayed there FOR DECADES. Found it though, and restored it!
https://79squireshop.weebly.com/part-i.html
Just incredible people, incredible story.
Until a suitable (or, rather, not so suitable) vehicle is found, keep the engine on its static display stand and run it while connected to a series of reduction gears with the final gear encased in concrete. Arthur Ganson, a kinetic sculptor, has done at least two such assemblies but with electric motors: https://www.arthurganson.com/concrete-1
From Ganson’s post:
“Each worm/worm gear pair reduces the speed of the motor by 1/50th. Since there are 12 pairs of gears, the final speed reduction is (1/50) to the 12th power! The implications are interesting. With the motor turning at around 200 revolutions per minute, it will take well over two trillion years before the final gear can make but one turn. Consequently, it is possible to do anything at all with the final gear… even embed it in concrete… and the machine will run just fine.
This machine was followed up by a related work- Beholding the Big Bang which has a more modest gear reduction- 13.7 billion years- the estimated age of the universe since the big bang.”
I would so put this in my battery powered boat.
Because it’s sinking and those sharks look pretty hungry.
Or do something absolutely batshit like this: https://youtu.be/73s5sPyBMoE?si=zogCFzsMpKAMMxWW
Is it longer than a Ford Festiva (Kia Pride) is wide?
If no, new Festiva SHOgun.