Aside from being renowned as a luxury automaker, Rolls-Royce has a reputation of an engine maker in the aviation industry. Someone installed such an engine into a car and tried to auction it for a profit, but pulled back after the bidding barely reached €49,550.
Powering this extremely rare 1930 Rolls-Royce cabriolet is a Merlin-series engine that was later installed in Hurricane and Spitfire fighter planes made in the UK. It also powered the American P-51 Mustang during the World War II. Various accounts say between 150,000 and 170,000 such engines were made in total.
Buyers could choose from numerous configurations and displacement options, but the car seen here rocks a giant 27-liter version. It was commissioned for the public roads in Germany in the fall of 1930. The seller claims that you can hit 120 km/h (75 mph) in the first gear and then proceed to reach the car’s theoretical maximum of 350 km/h (217 mph), but admits that no one had attempted it throughout all these years.
On an interesting side note, while we don’t know all the details about the conversion, it’s not a restomod or a recent project in any way. The listing says the most recent modifications were made to it in the 1970s – that’s half a century ago.
With the auction over and no sale, we now know that the owner values the venerable road rocket at above €50,000. It currently resides in Germany, so feel free to contact them for details if interested.
