Page 22 - April 2023

The Beast , cont inued from page 21 Later, after The Beast became famous, BP became a
sponsor. The oil behemoth picked up the fuel bill for
Version #1 of what was to become Dodd's magnificent the automotive behemoth as it made the rounds of
obsession had few things in common with what car shows and exhibitions and was seen driving the
became the ultimate design. The car stretched out an roads . In 1977 The Guiness Book of Records named t
unbelievable 19 feet long, huge by even the size of the The Beast as the world's most powerful street legal car
gas guzzling American Cadillacs of the time. ( It was also after a certified run of 183 mph.
too long for Dodd's garage).
A Fire Result s in a Rest yling of t he Car
The body crafted for the intial go was actually still in the followed by an Inferno in t he Court s
realm of possibility rather than eyepopping. It had
certain elements of Ford Capri styling, with mutiple It was in 1975, while returning from a car show in
trips to the parts bin. For example, the seats were from a Sweden, that Version #1 caught on fire and burned to
Lotus Elan +2 while the windscreen came from a Jensen the chassis. While Rolls-Royce might have hoped that
FF. Rear glass was provided by a Reliant Scimitar. Dodd was not fully insured, it turned out that he was.
The insurance company paid out the equivalent of
The fibreglass body was painted a restrained
£121,000 in today's money for the car and threw in ,
burgundy (in the same way people say black is slimming)
at the current exchange rate, an additional £1500 to
and given a a white top. Dodd, however did have one
remove it from Sweden . BP ponied up £2000 to have
stipulation. He wanted the car to feature a Rolls Royce
its logo featured with the car.
grille, with the bonnet topped by the Spirit of Ecstasy.
He intended to honor the Merlin engine built by Without the settlement, it is unlikely that Dodd would
Rolls-Royce that powered the car. A grille from a have had the funds to begin again, but Bob Phelps of
Corniche and the Lady were procured, the grille cut Fibre Glass Repairs convinced Dodd to put the Beast
down and mounted , The Lady installed. back on the road. The original body makers would
build a new body; this time there would be no
Looking back in 2014 on The Beast's origin story Octane restraint in the design.
magazine described the first body styling as " a grossly
distended take on a MK1 Capri". A riff on a shooting brake was constructed. The car
was never designed to be a dragster but was always
It is likely that at this juncture in 1971 Rolls-Royce was intended by Dodd to be seen as a legitimate road car.
not amused but not yet horrified by the implications of The view below was what was most most often seen
a road car with its current styling mounted up with the by people who would gawp at the reconstructed
trademark grille and mascot of one the world's better Beast as they tried to keep up. He who laughs last,
known stately automobiles. Dignfied luxury branding is laughs best.
not compatible with out and out British eccentric
enthusiasm and outrageous appearance no matter
how amazing the performance.

Dodd once told a presenter from the BBC that "The
idea was to have a car that could beat anything on Earth
and at the same time, run on the cheapest petrol."

During Dodd's ownership the car would be described as
being rated at between 550 to 1,000 bhp; no one
could argue that the cost of petrol was unimportant
because the 27 litre Meteor V12 engine managed only
NEW FEATURES
two miles per gallon.
NEW MODELS
22