Rolls-Royce Merlin Rolls-Royce Merlin The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engine of 27-litres (1,650 cu in) capacity. Rolls-Royce designed the engine and first ran it in 1933 as a private venture. Initially known as the PV-12, it was later called "Merlin" following the company convention of naming its piston aero engines after birds of prey. After several modifications, the first production variants of the PV-12 were completed in 1936. The first operational aircraft to enter service using the Merlin were the Fairey Battle, Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. The Merlin remains most closely associated with the Spitfire and
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