Supermarine Spitfire several roles, including interceptor, photo-reconnaissance, fighter-bomber, and trainer, and it continued to serve in these roles until the 1950s. The Seafire was a carrier-based adaptation of the Spitfire that served in the Fleet Air Arm from 1942 through to the mid-1950s. Although the original airframe was designed to be powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine producing 1,030 hp (768 kW), it was strong enough and adaptable enough to use increasingly powerful Merlins and, in later marks, Rolls-Royce Griffon engines producing up to 2,340 hp (1,745 kW). As a result, the Spitfire's performance and capabilities improved over the course of its
Rolls-Royce–Bentley L-series V8 engine Flying Spur and Continental models. The first engine of V8 configuration was developed in 1904 by the Marmon Motor Car Company in the United States. It was experimental, however, and did not find its way into a passenger vehicle. Rolls-Royce premiered the world's second V8 engine in 1905 for their Rolls-Royce V-8 Legalimit – governed not to exceed the legal speed limit in Britain at the time of . It was not a success, with only three made and just one sold, which was soon returned to the factory to be scrapped. It was another decade before Cadillac pioneered a