The Rolls-Royce V-8 was a car produced by

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

in 1905 intended to compete with the then popular

electric car An electric car or electric vehicle (EV) is a passenger car, passenger automobile that is propelled by an electric motor, electric traction motor, using electrical energy as the primary source of propulsion. The term normally refers to a p ...

s used in towns.Ludvigsen, Karl. "Bentley's Great Eight", Dalton Watson Fine Books, Claude Johnson, business partner of C. S. Rolls suggested there would be a market for an internal-combustion-engined car that could take on the electric car market. To do this it would have to be silent, vibrationless and smokeless. The engine would also have to be mounted under the car to give the appearance of a town brougham and so needed to be very shallow. To compete with early

s, the engine was a completely new design with smoothness and quietness as top priorities, with power a secondary consideration. Production of the Rolls-Royce V-8 predated by a decade the first

mass production Mass production, also known as mass production, series production, series manufacture, or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines ...

of a V8 engine, by

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, and three years after

Leon Levavasseur Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...

built the very first V-8 engine of any type, with his patented, liquid-cooled

Antoinette 8V The Antoinette 8V was an early French eight-cylinder, liquid-cooled, V engine, the first series production gasoline-fueled, spark plug ignition engine of any kind produced with manifold injection Manifold injection is a mixture formation system ...

aviation engine, also pioneering

petrol direct injection Gasoline direct injection (GDI), also known as petrol direct injection (PDI), is a fuel injection system for internal combustion engines that run on gasoline (petrol) which injects fuel directly into the combustion chamber. This is distinct fro ...

for its induction system. Henry Royce designed the engine in the form of a 90-degree,

side-valve A flathead engine, also known as a sidevalve engine''American Rodder'', 6/94, pp.45 & 93. or valve-in-block engine, is an internal combustion engine with its poppet valves contained within the Cam-in-block, engine block, instead of in the cyl ...

, , V-8. To reduce fumes the then common drip lubrication was replaced by a pressure system. The power also seems to have been limited to maximise smooth running. Two body styles were proposed, a Landaulet par Excellence to attack the town electric market and the Legalimit. In reality, the Legalimit could travel at but the engine was governed so as not to exceed the legal speed limit in Britain at the time of . The Legalimit had the engine conventionally mounted at the front but under a very low bonnet. Only one example of the V-8 was sold, a Legalimit (chassis number 40518) to Sir Alfred Harmsworth. This was later taken back by the factory. All three cars then seem to have been used as works cars or for customer visits. Rolls ordered three more chassis for delivery in 1906 but there is no evidence these were ever made. Although the car cannot be judged a success, lessons were learned from the engine design that were later used on the six-cylinder models which helped establish the Rolls-Royce name. The 1905 V-8 is the only car model made by Rolls-Royce of which no example survives. Though none survive, Rolls-Royce at least emerges as the first to conceive of a passenger car designed from the outset as a V-8.

References

{{Rolls-Royce V-8 Cars introduced in 1905 Brass Era vehicles Cars discontinued in 1905