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“Silver Meteor” 1920’s Style Boat-tail Speedster
See the build gallery for an additional 65 Photos
PREFACE
After a bolt & nut and bare metal restoration of two laborious vintage cars; a 1936 Rolls-Royce 25/30HP 2D Fixed Head Coupe chassis GUL80 single-handed and a 1929 Buick 29-25 Five Passenger Phaeton together with my brother in a time period of seven years, I wanted to build something totally different for a change.
Being a car fanatic I could not however think of anything else than a very special and unique car.
It should be something wild and furious and with a Really Big engine!
THE HEART OF THE AUTOMOBILE
As a result of surfing in the web I found a sales ad of a Rolls-Royce Meteor engine. The engine had been in a tank of the Swedish army, manufactured at the beginning of 1950’s, totally reconditioned and test run by the army in 1990 and after that stored by the army until it was sold in an surplus auction.
My project plan started to take shape. Around this magnificent engine I could build a 1920’s style race car which used to have the biggest and most powerful engines the builders could find. The cars from this era did not have spherical forms in the body so it should be fairly easy to build. I have an English Wheel but not too much practice using it.
After painting most parts of the Buick myself I came to the conclusion that I’m not a painter, so it was easy to decide the material for the body; it was to be bare aluminum without painting.
I had some experience with the RR and Buick ash frame woodwork so the body should be built in the same traditional way with aluminum on a wood frame and aluminum sheets put together with aluminum ball head rivets.
So I bought the engine, started to browse race car pictures from the 1920’s in all possible sources to collect various details that I could use in my design, and also started to look for a strong and big enough chassis for the engine. At the beginning I pondered all possibilities to build the car so that it could be registered here in Finland. The regulations here are quite strict, so I decided just to make a show car which would give me totally free hands to really build something wild.
Without having no clue of the chassis I started to make the mudguards, the seats and the mahogany running-boards and battery boxes. Just to mention I didn’t have or made any drawings of the car or it’s parts. I just made them. You don’t actually need drawings when you make everything yourself and making just one unique vehicle.
The seat manufacturing started by sitting on piece of plywood board and drawing the shape of the seat on it around my butt (quite a big one). Then the shape of the backrest and armrests was determined with a piece of thick cardboard. This shape was copied to a aluminum sheet , the sheet mangled to right form, edges bead rolled and then fixed with screws to the seat. I used foam plastic to make the basic form of the seat cushion but correct sea hay to the filling of the buttoning and on the surface just under the leather to have the right feeling on the seats.
OTHER MAIN COMPONENTS
After a while I found a big 1928 Cadillac 341B Dual Cowl Phaeton chassis that was for sale. It had been a 2,7 ton total weight car so it would carry the engine without fear of damage. The frame had been already sand blasted and painted with primer. The axles, wheels, suspension parts, steering box and gearbox were all disassembled but came with the frame. The body of this car had totally vanished so according to Finnish regulations it wouldn’t have been possible to make a registered museum car of it. So I wouldn’t be destroying a possible restoration project. On the other hand, I did not actually destroy the chassis. The only thing I modified was the repositioning of one cross member to make space for the engine and gearbox.
IT’S STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A CAR
When all the chassis parts were completely overhauled I assembled it. Then I put the silver painted engine hanging on a chain hoist above the chassis. I soon realized that there isn’t too much choice where to locate the engine due to it’s huge length.
I wanted to the radiator to be just on the centreline of the front axle like it used to be in the 20’s and on the other hand there should be a reasonable measure from the gearbox to the rear axle to fit the prop shaft. I only had to relocate one cross member about 700mm rearwards to make place for the engine. After the engine was mounted, I installed the radiator and made the RR traditional style radiator cover and grille out of stainless steel around it. My car wasn’t a Rolls-Royce but having a genuine RR engine I thought it deserved this grille, too.
Then I installed the mudguards on the chassis so that I would be able to get a better picture of the whole front part of the car, and in order to decide the height and length of the bonnet. All the time I was a bit afraid how the car would look seen from a longer distance because in the garage I was only able to go roughly 3m distance to any direction from the car.
Because the tank had had a totally different power line from engine to gearbox than a normal car there were no flywheel or flywheel housing on the engine so I used the Cadillac flywheel and made the flywheel housing for it. When the gearbox was on the car and the pedals, gear selector and hand brake levers on it, the position of the seats was easy to determine.
After the seats where installed on a temporary pedestal it was time to determine the steering shaft length and height position of the steering wheel just by sitting on the seats and checking the driving position.
WOOD FRAME
Then I made the wood frame for the whole rear part of the car. Starting with an arch from the rear end of the imagined bonnet rearwards including the support for the dashboard, seat mounting pedestals and the frame for the planned boat-tail.
BODY BUILDING
When the wood work was ready the hard metal work started. The aluminium body work started with ordering a pile of 1,5mm and 2mm thickness sheets, 1200 pcs of 6mm long and 400 pcs 12mm long 6 mm diameter ball head aluminum rivets. The rivets had to specially made because I wasn’t able to find them in stock at any supplier. They only had the modern pop rivets which I would not approve.
First I made the bonnet consisting of six parts. The four upper ones were hinged to each other and then hinged to the body at the centerline.
The two lower parts of the bonnet had to be fixed to the chassis because the exhaust pipes come through them making it impossible to open them upwards. I made the mounting of these parts with
7 pcs wing nuts on both sides for easier access to the engine.
The securing of the upper bonnet parts had to be done with leather straps. There simply wasn’t any other correct alternative for this detail.
There sure was a lot of manual hammering with the rivets on the hinges, louvers etc. I made a pedestal to a steel bar having a ball shape immersion on the top and used it as a counter part.
After the bonnet was ready I made the panelling over the cockpit and around the seats. I didn’t have plans to make any windscreen on the car but at this stage I noticed that it was shouting for Brooklands type windscreens. So I made them of Perspex plate and aluminium frame and hinges. Then it was time for the floor of ready made worktop mahogany panel. I tried to buy just surfaced sawn mahogany but the sellers claimed that all available mahogany goes to Japan and China ?
Then the body was ready except the rear part which proved to be the trickiest. I wanted it to be a boat-tail. It was not so easy the make a part with that kind of a shape specially when it was assembled with rivets. That is why I had to make some compromises and use ball head bolts and nuts and screws in the most difficult places.
When the body was ready I made the electrical harnesses and connected them to the batteries, switches etc. The harnesses are extremely simple because there are no lights, no alternator system and no ignition system to wire. The ignition is with douple magnetos so there only has to be one main switch and two swithes for the grounding of the magnetos. ( To stop the engine)
I gave the final patination touch to all mahogany parts with several layers of wood oil, beeswax and finally with “cast-iron oven black” which is a mixture of graphite, wax and some solvent. Aluminum parts were rubbed with same “cast-iron oven black” and steelwool.
FIRST START
Then it was time to fill in the oil, coolant and fuel systems. I have to admit that this first start
of an engine was the most interesting and downright most exciting that I have ever done before.
I’m working with trucks as a profession but biggest engines on those have been only 18 litre and they are diesels. I hadn’t ever before heard a Merlin or a Meteor alive. And my engine has 12 75mm diameter, 350mm long exhaust pipes without any muffler!
As I was making the first start in my garage I had my ear plugs on, turned the main switch on, opened both magneto groundings, pulled the throttle lever out and instantly when I pressed the start button the engine absolutely exploded into running.
The oil pressure was OK and there were no leaks so I listened for a while on the engine and it sounded so great that I just had to take my ear plugs of to really hear the euphony of a huge V12 petrol engine. WOW!!!
The first drive back and forth our yard road was a success, too. Clutch worked smoothly and a the gearbox also without any problems, if you just remember that it is unsynchronised.
SOME TECHNICAL DETAILS
Engine : Rolls-Royce Meteor
Type: V12 petrol engine
Displacement: 27 litres
Valves & cams: 4 valves/cylinder, douple overhead camshafts
Ignition: Douple magnetos, 2 sparkplugs /cylinder
Fuel system: Two mechanical pumps, two douple throat Zenit carburettors
Fuel consumtion: 700 litres/h at max power
Lubrication: Dry sump, 20 litre oiltank
Power: 650 HP
Weight: 650 kg
History: Was originally designed as aero engine Merlin that was used e.g. in the Spitfire.
Merlin has a blower and 1300HP. Meteor is a tank engine developed based on
Merlin and some of the most expensive light-alloy parts were substituted by steel.
These engines were manufactured at Rover plants in Birmingham between years
1943-1964 for the tanks Comet, Cromwell etc. Totally about 9000 engines were
made.
The engine of Silver Meteor has been made at the beginning of 1950’s. It had
been in a Swedish Army tank, removed and totally reconditioned and test run in
1990 and after that stored until it was sold in an army surplus auction.
Chassis: 1928 Cadillac 341B Dual Cowl Phaeton (had mysteriously totally lost it’s body)
Gearbox: 3 speed unsyncronized, multidisc clutch
Brakes: Mechanical 16” drum brakes, parking brake at the rear axle
Wheels tyres: 20” wire wheels, 6.00-20 tyres
Wheelbase/length: 140”/ 5 meters
Weight: 2010 kg (Front axle 1000kg, rear axle 1010kg)
Design and
Manufacture: One made by Stig Fagerstedt Espoo Finland during October 2007 - July 2008.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
To my wife Pirkko for the patience and sympathy for my hobby.
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