Page 23 - April 2023

The new Beast remained a British parts bin special. It now had four rear lights from a Mk1.5 Capri, Austin
Westminster front suspension and steering, independent rear suspension and stronger drive shafts, springs,
and a pair of dampers at each corner, all derived from the Jaguar XJ12. Jaguar also provided vented discs on the
front and a GM Turbo 400 three-speed automatic transmission.

Paul Jameson sourced another engine for The Beast; this time it was a Rolls-Royce engine that had seen
service in a Boulton Paul Balliol trainer aircraft..

By this point Rolls-Royce's lawyers had begun making cease and desist noises to both Dodd and Phelps about
the use of Rolls-Royce trademarked emblems that appeared on the earlier car. Phelps, a businessman, tried
to convince Dodd to remove them from the new build.

Dodd remained adamant that the car that was listed and taxed by the London Council as being a Rolls-Rocye,
courtesy of its engine, would retain both the grille and the Lady. This time he sourced a Silver Shadow grille
and the inevitable showdown began to take form.

Back on the road, a decade after it had made its debut at the Custom Car Show at the Crsystal Palace, The
Beast was back, outlandish from any angle, a magnet for attention. In the May 1981 issue of Street Machine,
Mike Collins wrote, ?I?m not sure what it is exactly about the Beast that turns the media on, they?ve been offered
far more powerful and exotic traffic toys and ignored them; perhaps it?s the fact that the estimated seven
hundred horsepower is developed at a mind boggling twenty-five-hundred rpm."

It might also have been the fact that the motoring public , while enjoying the weird car, also admired the
pluck of its owner, John Dodd, who seemed to delight in getting up the nose of the stodgy men in suits at
Rolls-Royce. It turns out that the reserved British also have a healthy appreciation for the German concept of
schadenfreude [ taking delight in the misery of others].

Dodd ah have had the spirit of ecstasy but the agony was soon to follow.

St ory cont inues on page 24
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