I am glad someone has produced a video about the Rover BRM as it is so little known about. I had a brief involvement with the car in question, when in the 1980's I worked as an engineer at Noel Penny Turbines a gas turbine consultancy in the UK started by Noel Penny who was the final MD at at Rover Gas Turbines. Noel had a dream of producing a practical automotive gas turbine powered vehicles and we had one of I believe only two surviving cars. This was kept in running order and was used to take important visitors for rides up and down the orivate road outside the factory, in fact I think at one time it took Frank Williams of F! fame for a ride when we were woring with the Williams team on a project. i had a chance to sit in it a couple of times and saw it run many times, quite impressive. When i left the company in 1989 I lost track of the car. As an aside when the company folded in the mid ninties many of my ex colleques went on to work for Volvo who were looking into gas turbines as poweplants for large trucks, again this proved to be a dead end.

Andy Granatellis turbine Indy cars were a sight to behold just a few years after.

The Rover turbine engine lived on as it was used as the starter motor for the Hawker Harrier jump jet fighter aircraft. The modified Rover engine was itself started with by electric starter. This gave the aircraft the ability to take off from anywhere as it didn't require ground support. As the aircraft could also fly backwards it was possible to park it in a farm barn. How do I know this ? I worked for the subsidiary of Lucas Aerospace in the aircraft starter test & development department in 1970 when the Rover engine was under development. The Rover car JET 1 is preserved by the Science Museum in the UK.

Rover were such an excellent company at one time. Shame how they ended. Thanks for this. Edit: Ariel are making an electric car with a turbine as the range extender, so the jet might come back.

I Enjoyed It. I Only Knew About The Chrysler Car & The STP Special Which I Saw Race In Real Time. Thank You.

Very interesting. I only had knowledge of the Chrysler turbine and the STP turbines at Indy, which I saw live in 67 and 68.

Excellent video!

I owned a barber shop in Bourne, lincolnshire. The home of BRM. Many of my customers worked for or were involved in the manufacturing of BRM racing cars. BRM were always willing to experiment ,eg the v16 engine. Mike pilbeam, a major designer at BRM and responsible for pilbeam hill climbers was an acquaintance of mine and I believe I gave Raymond May's his last haircut and shave,just days before his death. These were wonderful times for motor racing, to me it has lost its sparkle, albeit it's a lot safer now. British racing green is still my favourite colour.

Ken Wallis also built a turbine car for the 1967 Indianapolis 500. The car led throughout the race before it had to retire because of a engine bearing failure just 8 minutes short of the finish line. Another point of interest is that actor James Garner drove the pace car for that event.

The Rover jet one (never heard about it until just now, thank you!) is really beautiful to me in a kind of brutish way kinda like the Fiat s76. How awesome would it be to drive that thing around packing a Rolls-Royce 12 under the bonnet? 🤤🤤🤤. Is it funny to anybody else that there was a jet competing in the 2.0L class? I guess back then they didn't know the importance of protecting against foreign object damage. That's a big deal in the Air Force, we used to do FOD-walks regularly. Being that the aerodynamic design requirements needed to maintain air speed in order to stay aloft weren't a major concern, they probably should've thought more about the necessity for air intakes that were protected by screens. Sure, it may have affected their performance some. Finishing second with a damaged engine in the 24 hours of LeMans is unheard of anyway. I would imagine a small performance penalty in exchange for an engine that performed optimally would have resulter in no less than a first place finish. Great video, thanks again!

Good to see this video. I remember the car very well, it got a lot of publicity back in the day and was very famous. It's such a wonderful machine.

Fabulous video - I knew the story but not all the details that you have meticulously researched and put together to make the story complete. I was lucky enough to see (and hear) the Rover BRM as it was driven around closed streets in Birmingham as part of a cavalcade of racing + classic cars organised (early 1980s?) as part of a campaign to get street racing in Birmingham, finally given the go-ahead as the Birmingham Superprix which was then held annually for about 5 years (until the early 1990s?). I don’t know if the car is still running but it now lives in a motor museum in the Midlands where it was created.

oh my god i didnt think anyone else knew about the BRM

Great video, very interesting.

I'll take 2 of these Rovers Please and Thank You!!! 🤠👍

The 1960's Rover P6 is a road car which has and engine bay that is rounded so that the jet could be placed in it!

That's very cool.

Ariel has a hypercar that employs a turbine to generate power and extend range. Not the same...but its still a whirly-gig!

GOOD ONE

Also look @ the Leyland turbine truck ...

Government central planning always leads to failure. F-EVs

Gas turbines in street cars never became a reality in the end due to their prodigious thirst at idle of course this was not such a problem for a race car since it spends most of it's time at wot. It is the first time I have seen a picture of the T4 and I was surprised to see the body styling so closely matching the later Rover P6 road car. BRM had some adventurous engine designs unfortunately not all of which were successful but they did create some awesome engine sounds.

Is it just me who thinks gas turbine cars are jinxed?

Might as well? U mean give up?

Looks a lot like Lotus Elan +2. Like they stole the design from Lotus.

Por-ssh? Poor-sh-uhh