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A pretty cool coffee table

Imperial One

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I took this photo around 15 years ago at the home of an acquaintance in England. Tim (TiMopar on this forum) and I were visiting him. The base is an aluminum Rover V8 engine. I thought it was pretty cool. I happened upon the photo while dealing with backing up my computer. It's what every gear head needs in their home!

Engine.jpg
 
Daughters boy friend made a similar thing from an old three cylinder Diesel engine of some sort. Was way cool. Even with no internal parts it weighed a few hundred pounds. When he was moving he left it unattended by the door of his building and someone STOLE it! We’re still shaking our head over that one.
 
...I think the installed height on those pistons is a little high...

That's pretty slick though. Too bad all my partial-engines are greasy, grimy, and unfit for indoor use! Although, I do have a frame from a collectible motorcycle I totalled (well...Bambi totalled - hit at 70mph, I superman'd over the bars, slid 340' up the road on my back, the bike cut the deer in half and the steering head nearly snapped completely off the frame in the process) a couple years ago. Maybe I should get some glass cut, and turn that into a table.
 
I thought this might make a cool table base but I'll never get it done.

241 red ram.jpg IMG_20130930_162557.jpg
 
It turns our there a quite a few of these coffee tables out there. I knew about the one on Top Gear for some time. This one

Coffee-Table-Top-Gear.jpg


You can also buy them on ebay:

Here's a V12 Jaguar engine:

s-l1600.jpg


And if you're really posh you can have an Aston Martin

Aston s-l1600.jpg
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Or, really, really posh a Bugatti W16

IMG_1681.jpg


check these guys out on line:

http://www.engine-tables.co.uk/our-products/
 
The Rover block and pistons would be easy to live with at 70 pounds.
 
the rover engine is a early 60s olds or buick v8 they also made v6 , both droped by gm v6 went to kaiser willys if i remember correctly worked on both of them at AMC rambler dealership they should still be out there in older wrecking yards. mite not recognize al because of grease and dirt .
 
the rover engine is a early 60s olds or buick v8 they also made v6 , both droped by gm v6 went to kaiser willys if i remember correctly worked on both of them at AMC rambler dealership they should still be out there in older wrecking yards. mite not recognize al because of grease and dirt .

The Rover V8 was based on the Buick Nailhead. Here's a bit of the story:

ROVER TAKES A HAND

Ordinarily, that would’ve been all she wrote for the aluminum V8 and its V6 brother, but each engine had a different — and separate — fate in store.


In 1963, the British automaker Rover was looking for a new engine to power its top-of-the-line cars. The existing Rover P5 saloon had a somewhat elderly 183 cu. in. (2,995 cc) F-head straight six that was too heavy and too thirsty for its modest output. Rover was exploring five- and six-cylinder versions of the new inline four from the Rover P6 when managing director William Martin-Hurst had an entirely different inspiration.


Martin-Hurst was then visiting Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, to talk to Mercury Marine president Carl Kiekhaefer about licensing Rover’s new gas turbine engine for marine applications. During those discussions, Martin-Hurst noticed (or, in some versions of the story, literally stumbled over) a Buick aluminum V8 that Kiekhaefer had intended to install in a power boat. After Kiekhaefer explained what the engine was, Martin-Hurst arranged to have the V8 shipped back to Solihull for evaluation.


Some Rover engineers were less than thrilled with the idea of using an American engine in their cars, but the aluminum V8 transformed the performance of the Rovers in which it was installed. The V8 was only slightly heavier than the P6’s four-cylinder engine, significantly lighter than the P5’s F-head six, and dramatically more powerful than either.


If Buick had still been building the aluminum V8, Rover would likely have arranged to purchase complete engines for use in its own cars. Since the aluminum engine was no longer in production, however, Martin-Hurst instead approached Rollert about the possibility of Rover’s purchasing the manufacturing rights. Although GM was initially puzzled by the inquiry, a deal was struck by early 1965, giving Rover the rights to manufacture and use the aluminum engine.


Although Buick threw in copies of its technical data and a number of unused production engines, Rover had very little prior experience with V8s or vee engines in general. Since the engine’s lead designer, Joe Turlay, was about to retire, Rover arranged to hire him as a consultant and move him to England to oversee the establishment of Rover’s new V8 production line.


The aluminum V8 required various changes to prepare it for Rover’s use. Since there were then no English suppliers capable of replicating GM’s casting methods for the V8’s aluminum block, Rover had to redesign the engine for simpler sand casting methods, which also required substituting pressed-in cylinder liners for the Buick engine’s cast-in units. The V8 also got a new crankshaft and an assortment of British-made carburetors and accessories. Those changes made the Rover version of the aluminum V8 around 55 lb (25 kg) heavier than its Buick predecessor, but the Rover engine was still very light for its size and displacement.


If you're interested the whole story here:

https://ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/buick-special-skylark-rover-v8-3800-v6-history/
 
the rover engine is a early 60s olds or buick v8 they also made v6 , both droped by gm v6 went to kaiser willys if i remember correctly worked on both of them at AMC rambler dealership they should still be out there in older wrecking yards. mite not recognize al because of grease and dirt .
The V6 won't be that hard to find, GM bought the rights and tooling back from AMC for the 1975 model year and it didn't go out of production until 2008.
 
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