Rolls-Royce Meteorite years to 1964 and was centred at the Acocks Green "shadow factory" near Birmingham Rolls-Royce Meteorite The Rolls-Royce Meteorite was a British V8 petrol or diesel engine of capacity, and was derived from the Rolls-Royce Meteor, which was itself based on the Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine. In essence it was two-thirds of a V12 Meteor and it shared the Meteor's 60° vee angle. Meteorites were built for vehicles, for marine use and as stationary power units. It powered the Thornycroft Antar or "Mighty Antar" tank transporter and was used to transport two types of Meteor-engined tanks, the Centurion and Conqueror
Rolls-Royce V8 engine of work under Les Maddock and Colin Weston, the first result of which was the N80, a 4-valve, double overhead camshaft, 5.0 litre V8. This successfully ran first stage 1000 hours testing straight off the drawing board without incident. Subsequently, the marketing brief foresaw the requirement for a higher capacity version and the N81, 6.0 litre version, was designed. The project was stopped around 1991 with further development of the L410 engine that enabled emissions requirements to be met using a pre-catalyst assembly at substantially lower investment. Rolls-Royce V8 engine In the history of Rolls-Royce automobiles, only two distinct series