THE JET SET
Gas turbine engines with coupled mechanical shaft drive, power the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. They also power other RN warships, electricity generators and the US military’s Abrams Main Battle Tanks.
What they don’t power are road vehicles – despite the high hopes of experimental projects mounted from the 1940s until the 1970s by some of the automotive industry’s biggest names.
Pure jet turbines for aircraft propulsion were invented by Sir Frank Whittle when he was a young Royal Air Force Officer. On the eve of the Second World War, the Air Ministry – the arm of Government responsible for the RAF – recognised the need to accelerate development. It teamed under-resourced Whittle with Rover. At the time, the Solihull-based company was an independent manufacturer of motor cars.
The logical partner for jet engine development was Rolls-Royce, which took over the project once its engineering capacity was on top of demand for Merlin V12 military aircraft engines.
In the opposite direction, Rover was contracted to produce Merlin-derived V8s for British Army tanks – and first-generation Thornycroft Antar tank transporters.
After the Second World War, Rover developed gas turbines with a coupled shaft-drive system for aircraft and auxiliary power industrial applications. This work led to an automotive derivative, publicly demonstrated in 1950. The engine powered a much modified, open-top prototype based on the P4
