New member getting ready to swap the motor.

Robbie4T said:

So, he (John Dodd) is towing a car with his Rolls Royce (not the beast) at 100mph, and overtakes a police car with blue lights flashing, then overtakes the robbers in the getaway car. I would normally say....Well you couldn't make it up.

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Myself and other Auto Trans firm owners in Kent and SE London new him very well, he actually took me for a lap of the M25 in the Beast, shortly after the M25 was completed, and long before it became clogged with all the "clones" of today

Believe me, seriously, he didn't make it up I can assure you that mostly all of those stories were true, some embellished by the press, but there was plenty of truth in all of them.
Back in the 80's / 90's there was nowhere near the amount of traffic on the roads, Police didn't have the vehicles and tech they have today, none of us had any respect for them, (still dont TBF), and it was common place to outrun them for a laugh !!

The most powerful thing a few cops had back then was some rather asthmatic V8 3500 Rovers, which would do around 120 flat out downhill with a tailwind There was no ANPR or Cameras, it was a proper fair game back then !!

John was a real character who I had the pleasure of knowing fairly well when I had my Auto Transmission firm, (30 years odd), John also had a Trans firm in UK

We all knew each other back then and swapped parts and knowledge with each other. After the RR Court case he went to Spain and set up an Auto Trans shop, I believe that shop is shown in one of the videos above when he took the Car out to Marbella.

There was a lot of guys didn't like him and thought he was a bullsh 1 tter, rumours in the media back then, reports like it wasn't a real Spitfire Engine, (it deffo was, I know which airfield it came from) !!
Also rubbish like he didn't ride the Horse to court, jeezus it was actually photographed well at that time, and the bank robber story, well OK they hadn't robbed a bank, but they were robbers fleeing a well known scene, yes it did happen, yes he did fly over the block of flats waving at his neighbours etc etc etc etc.

JD was an absolute legend, and yeah he got dissed by folks who had never even met the man !!
The UK needs more guys like us here today !! Folks don't believe half my stories, but they are true, I'm no bragger, I don't care

OH, btw, I just remembered, back in that era I also towed a powerboat down the M2 to Cuxton at 120mph with that Range Rover above, it was only when I pulled off at the Cuxton turn off that I saw blue lights flashing, a way behind me, I carried on to Kent Boat and Ski Club and pulled into the Car Park, about a minute after I got out of the Rangey I saw the Ford Escort 1300 pull in behind me ........................

I got a rollocking, but since he had no calibrated speedo nor radar etc in that patrol car he couldn't actually nick me

SLK32Rick said:

M139 416hp 4 cylinder AMG engine and trans from the A/GLA45.

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The best motor for an R170 will be the M113K, they will fit in, and if I could have got one for a sensible price way back then, that would have been my motor of choice, but in UK they are rare as rocking horse poop and sell for ridiculous prices.

I was watching one on EBay back then, on a Pallet, no Airbox or ancilliaries, con rod through the side of the Block and Sump and it went for over £4,500.

I was considering making an offer for it, and buying a regular n/a 5.4 to use it's block crank and rods, (pistons are obviously different), until I ran all the part numbers in EPC and found that the Crank, Rods, Block and Sump are different too !!

That's why I ended up with a regular n/a M113 motor, tuned I bought a complete donor S Class for £500 from a Car dealers trade in's and used it's Engine, Trans, and Brake Calipers, plus a few other bitties for the R170, and since I also own a V8 S Class I also harvested a whole bunch of other spares to keep

Back then, I also looked at the M156 AMG C63 Twin Turbo Quad Cam V8's but they would be way better suited to an R171 conversion, the R170 would need a heap of bulkhead and inner wing refabrication as these Engines are simply physically too big for the wee R170

If converting an R171 I personally would go for the C43 AMG 4WD set up and get all that glorious power down on the road

The Beast sold at auction earlier this year for £72,500, it is rumoured that it is still in Johns family.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I just checked DVLA, the Car is showing as still registered in UK and was Taxed for 12 months in April this year ....