Holy Roller! The car capable of doing 240 mph (From Echo)

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Holy Roller! The car capable of doing 240 mph

5:00pm Saturday 12th November 2011 in Billericay By Paul Offord

Fastest roller – Matthew Wright, who bought the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow for £200 and spent £120,000 on its super-powered engine

A ROLLS-Royce bought off Ebay for just £200 has been transformed into the world’s fastest luxury car – capable of accelerating from 0 to 60mph in under 1.5 seconds.

The 1974 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow has been fitted with a 9.7-litre twin-turbo charged V8 engine.

It was created by Matthew Wright, 45, in Billericay, who started out with a shell he bought for £200 on the auction website.

He assembled a small team of engineers and enthusiasts and set about building the world’s fastest Rolls-Royce, which they affectionely named Outlaw. It can do 175mph, but they believe with some slight modifications it will achieve 240mph. Mr Wright said: “I’ve raced numerous cars over the years, and decided I wanted to do something different.

“Rolls-Royce famously said the loudest thing in one of their cars at 60mph is the clock. Well, we’re going to need a louder clock with this.”

Upgrading the super-fast car cost about £120,000.

The work was overseen by experienced racing car engineer Bill Felstead, 52, over the past ten months.

He said: “The Rolls is the most ambitious car I’ve worked on.

“It is difficult to build a drag car with all this power and keep it looking like a normal car. When you see the American racers they have parts sticking out. When you see this it looks like a normal Rolls-Royce, but underneath it is completely different.”

The team plans to take the Rolls-Royce to the USA next year for an event known as Drag Week, where they will compete in five separate quarter mile races.

This will involve driving Outlaw more than 1,000 miles between races.

Matthew added: “We’ll be travelling across the USA with the Rolls and towing a trailer with everything we need stored inside.

“When we arrive at each destination, we will unhook the trailer, make a few adjustments and prepare to race.”

Comments(11)

pendulum says...
6:36pm Sat 12 Nov 11

"It can do 175mph, but they believe with some slight modifications it will achieve 240mph."

With slight modifications... to the speed measuring equipment perhaps! There is no way that's hitting a genuine 240mph, it's got the problem of being not very aerodynamic for a start, and when you're hoping to hit 240mph then that becomes a bit of a problem... It's said it can only do 175mph at the moment, does the Echo know what the "slight modifications" are that will cause such a colossal increase in top speed?