On Sep 10, 3:12 pm, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:
In article .com,
RapidRonnie wrote:

Interesting point was that just about the only US V-8 that ended up
being made in the UK was the Buick unit which became the Rover one -
and gained some 20 bhp when being fitted with SUs. Of course that
wasn't the only mod. But I'm not sure what the original carbs were.

The RR V-8 is not an exact copy of any US engine but is very close
to the Olds in some ways and IIRC Chryslers in others. Bristol of
course simply used a blueprinted Chrysler: Jensen used them out of the
box.

I suppose there's not really that many different designs for pushrod V-8s,
but it was never mentioned at the time that the Rolls engine was based on
any other - nor did they, as far as I know, pay any royalties etc unlike
Rover who bought their design outright from GM. And of course the Rolls
engine was several years earlier - IIRC 1959 being the first year of
production. And still going...

--
*You can't have everything, where would you put it?*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Quite a bit of this is insidiously erroneous. I spoke to the
distinguished motoring journalist Edward Eves about 25 years ago about
the origins of the Rolls-Royce V8 engine. He had total access to the
RR archives for a book he was writing. He said that the story that RR
copied a Chrysler engine was quite untrue (as for lesser breeds of
engines, gee...). Nor is Dave quite right in saying RR paid no
royalties. They did pay Chrysler a royalty for the tappets in the RR
V8which were manufactured under license from the American company,
which is perhaps where the "copy of a Chrysler engine" story arises.
But in automobiles everyone pays everyone else royalties; Rolls-Royce
even in the time of Sir Henry, who prided himself on making everything
himself if he could make it better, licensed their brake assistance
from Hispano-Suiza, more recenlty self-levelling suspension technology
was licensed from Citroen, and so on, so that the tappets licensed
from Chrysler fits neatly into the pattern. After all, no one will
claim just because RR licensed Citroen technology that they build a
copy of the 1956 Goddess!

Andre Jute