The Visceral Experience of Driving Classic Cars

I mean, the noises it makes and the feeling you get kind of feels like driving an airplane. The sheer weight of the Merlin works against its own power, it definitely revs harder than the modern engine but it makes for a rougher ride even at 55. It feels terrifying to drive.

Another corner coming up, hang on everybody. Ah no problem. I like this stuff because it's more involving. You don't know if you're gonna make it. You can always get home in a modern car. Thing with planes was speed to climb. You need octane. You need more power. It's the last of the great piston engines.

The jets came in right after this. They're always saying, "There's no replacement for displacement." Well, that's kind of been replaced now. Engine efficiency has become so high when the Mustang came out in '65 it had 271 horsepower in the hypo version. Now, when you get the four-cylinder economy Mustang, it's got 306 horsepower. It doesn't matter. It's doing it more efficiently.

All right, let's take this new Bentley for a ride. All right, welcome to my Bentley. Yeah, this is nice. This is the new Continental GT convertible. As you may be able to tell, this thing is beautiful. It's a statement piece but it's also pretty quick.

Let's feel it. It's a 5400-pound car to move like that takes some serious engine. Makes a lot of horsepower, which is cool. One of the things that's modern Bentley can't hold a candle to compared to that older Merlin engine is the amount of torque it produces. So, this might be faster but if you were to do a little tug of war between the two, I think this one would lose heavily.

This thing makes about 600 plus foot-pounds of torque. But Merlin makes 1200 foot-pounds almost double. The reason it can do that is obviously its 27-liter displacement. You're getting a lot of displacement, a lot of displacement that allows you to make a lot of torque. So, these two have the same amount of horsepower and horsepower pretty much tells you the amount of work your engine can do over a period of time.

Whiles torque tells you how much force you can get in an instant. As soon as that piston gets pushed down by the compression, it's creating a force that torque is what you feel now. One thing with a smaller engine like this. It's never going to have as much torque as a 27-liter engine just never will.

Are you saying there's no replacement for displacement? Yes, the physics of it aren't going to change just because you wanted to Joe. Okay. All right and one of the limiting factors of an engine that big making that much torque is that they don't spin very fast. Right. That's a lot of mass to get up to speed.

So if you have dig pistons with big bores, you create a lot of torque but when you start getting higher up in the RPMs it's harder and harder to spin that all that reciprocating mass without it coming apart without it coming apart. Exactly.

Engines like these they make up for it by having lighter internal components. Everything is more efficient. It's physics baby. I didn't invent it Einstein did you. Sort of replace that displacement with the turbochargers but that's through a lot of effort and years and years of development to get as much torque out of this engine as it makes which is almost 700 foot-pounds right.

You got to work for it. You got to add some turbos. You got to put some smart thinking into it and that's what they've done here. I mean you should see the factory the facility that this basically comes out of. It's state-of-the-art.

The Merlin engine is a hundred years old basically at this point. Those huge torque figures are just a part of a big displacement. Yeah we've come a long way haven't we? Yeah but the real question which one would you take the Merlin. I think the Merlin understands the coolest party trick you could ever do laughs.

Well, Mr Leno thank you so much guys. You're welcome anytime come on by we've got plenty of stuff to play with. Yeah check out Jay on his channel follow us here at donut media follow me at Jeremiah Burton follow him at Zac Joe. You got an Instagram somewhere you'll find it just Google Jalen oh you got it bye for now.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is a 1930 Bentley and it's got a big old Secret Under the Bullman this V12 airplane engine pumps out 650 and it displaces 27 liters that's this mini sodas and this is the W12 Continental GT it makes the same 650 horsepower and it only displaces six tiny liters today we're gonna find out what it's like to drive this 100 year old Behemoth and why it's possible to get the same amount of power today on a much smaller scale how can so much less volume make the same horsepower all right I'm going to give it a little throttle hang on everybody and at the very end Jay promised us that we could drag race no no I said if you scratch it I would drag you behind it sounds like a maybe walk with a donut this is the engine that's inside the 27 liter Bentley it's the Rolls-Royce Merlin and if you can't tell by the huge propeller it was built to be inside planes holy crap got his own trailer yeah look at this bees just this massive engine we are trying out one of these an hour Germans couldn't shoot them down fast enough that was American manufacturing back in the day most big high horsepower engines we see on this channel are built to push the boundaries of Motorsports or are extreme examples of people building overpowered cars for poops and Giggles but this engine and its insane displacement was built out of necessity so uh I got one question how do we turn this thing on left mag right mag watch out I haven't been this nervous for somebody else to start an engine in a long time oh my God coming out of Germany up to 400 miles and it's one of the reasons right here amazing holy crap we used to use these for air raid sirens how do you prevent hair loss well today's sponsor keeps makes hair loss prevention Easy by shipping your hair loss medication directly through your door at about half the cost of a traditional Pharmacy delivered right keeps medical providers will help select the right products and treatments for your specific conditions and hair goals all without ever visiting an office or Pharmacy and it's homegrown hair baby whether you're looking to prevent hair loss stimulate growth or just take better care of those follicles hair loss stops with keeps hair loss stops I already said that go to keeps.com Donut media and get a special offer today the giant displacement of this engine is a huge reason for its top speed but these massive Aero engines were also equipped with a supercharger giving the aviation versions of the Merlin over 1200 horsepower this is a supercharger and cool thing about it it's a two-speed supercharger as you're going higher higher up in the air because this is off plane the air thins out when that air thins out you need to put more in there so you switch into a second gear it spins faster sucks more air in allows you to make more power or up in the sky superchargers were created and refined by the aviation industry in order to push more air into the engine at high altitudes where the air is less dense now this stretched out Bentley that we'll be driving soon actually doesn't have a supercharger and that's because this engine was actually pulled from a friggin tank so this engine is naturally aspirated which is why we get that 650 horsepower figure which begs the question how can something so much more compact like that W12 produce as much power as this humongous engine at almost a quarter of the displacement well in order to understand the power and efficiency of this 21st century machine let's first talk about the engineering of the 1940s that went into creating this displacement monster foreign was designed to be in a plane so without the limitations of space in an automobile the engineers were able to ramp up the size of everything to produce those 27 liters it's also important to note that these things were designed to be shot at so nearly everything in this engine apart from the aluminum alloy heads is built from steel or a form of steel alloy and it's built free this thing also requires a whopping 17 gallons of oil to operate and all those parts add up to an engine that weighs about 3 500 pounds Jer it is hilarious how massive this car is but how tiny every seating position is maybe people were way shorter in the 30s now the engineering behind this engine is obviously incredible but when you start to think about all the forces required to move those heavy internals you'll start to understand the inefficiency and limits of an engine like this so in order for this engine to be put in this chassis this Bentley had to be stretched yeah 18 foot on the money pretty long let's just look at the length of this engine dude we got five and a half half feet of boldness face that's a lot of engine this isn't actually a 1930 Bentley this is fully custom this is an amazing build it's crazy that anybody even underwent this project it's like insane and it's really well done the Merlin Bentley is an impressive build with a ludicrous engine so how come the W12 is just as powerful at less than half the size now the W12 on the other hand displaces six liters but puts down the same power as the Merlin yeah if you're not familiar with the W12 engine it's essentially two VR6 engines mated together to a single crankshaft Jerry did a whole episode on the W12 on Bumper to Bumper Bentleys are known for being smooth riding cars but v12s are known as being very inherently balanced smooth engines so we figured why don't we put this to the test by using a stack of coins that we've super glued together I know that's illegal in all 59 States but I don't care I didn't do it I'm going to take these coins I'm going to put it right on the center of this engine and Joby is going to start it up and see if moves this engine is comprised of 294 individual elements Each of which have been developed with over a hundred years of trial and error and with today's modern technology to be as lightweight and efficient as possible modern Electronics more efficient it only weighs 540 pounds compared to 3 500 pounds so we've got the same amount of cylinders but the Pistons are so much smaller on that thing you know the bore is probably five inches five and a half do you know what the stroke is of that six inches five and a half inches by six inches that's basically like a coffee can and it's a lot of weight to sling around right modern day bores you're looking around the three and a half inch range which my girlfriend says is perfectly fine so the Merlin has raw power well the W12 has modern engineering on its side but the only real way to see the difference between them is to take them out on the road well what you have here it's an airplane engine that was used in a tank and now it's used in a car how much torque does this engine make well over a thousand foot pounds oh yeah what are you to say horsepower sales cars torque wins races this engine is meant to move an 80 ton tank don't forget it's very undistressed it's not moving 80 tons it's also got power steering which makes it a little easier yeah it seems you know like it's got pretty good road manners considering what it is you want to give it a shot I would love to foreign oh my God the front end is a mile away it feels humongous it feels like I'm driving a country I don't like that my head is the tallest thing on this thing you're the roll bar I know the big Bentley is a trip but the more you drive it the more you notice the shortcomings of such a massive engine it's so visceral I mean the noises it makes and the feeling you get kind of feels like you're driving an airplane the sheer weight of the Merlin works against its own power it definitely revs harder than the modern engine but it makes for a rougher ride even at 55 it feels terrifying to drive another Corner coming up hang on everybody ah no problem I like this stuff because it's more involving you don't know if you're gonna make it you can always get home in a modern car thing with planes was speed to climb you need octane you need more power it's the last of the great piston engines the Jets came in right after this they're always saying the phrase there's no replacement for displacement well that's kind of been replaced now ended to become so efficient when the Mustang came out in 65 it had 271 horsepower in the hypo version now when you get the four cylinder economy Mustang it's got 306 horsepower it doesn't matter it's doing it more efficiently all right let's take this new Bentley for a ride all right welcome to my Bentley yeah this is nice this is the new Continental GT convertible as you may be able to tell this thing is beautiful it's a statement piece but it's also pretty quick let's feel it it's a 5400 pound car to be able to move like that takes some serious engine makes a lot of horsepower which is cool one of the things that's modern Bentley can't hold a candle to compared to that older Merlin engine is the amount of torque it produces so this might be faster but if you were to do a little tug of war between the two I think this one would lose heavily this thing makes about 600 plus foot pounds of torque but Merlin makes 1200 foot-pounds almost double and the reason it can do that is obviously it's 27 liters you're getting a lot of displacement a lot of displacement that allows you to make a lot of torque so these two have the same amount of horsepower and horsepower pretty much tells you the amount of work your engine can do over a period of time whereas torque tells you how much force you can get in an instant as soon as that piston gets pushed down by the compression it's creating a force that torque is what you feel now one thing with a smaller engine like this it's never going to have as much torque as a 27 liter engine just never will are you saying there's no replacement for a displacement yes the physics of it aren't going to change just just because you wanted to Joe okay all right and one of the limiting factors of an engine that big making that much torque is that they don't spin very fast right that's a lot of Mass to get up to speed so if you have dig Pistons with big bores you create a lot of torque but when you start getting higher up in the RPMs it's harder and harder to spin that all that reciprocating mask without it coming apart without it coming apart exactly engines like these they make up for it by having lighter internal components everything is more efficient it's physic baby I didn't invent it Einstein did you do sort of replace that displacement with the turbochargers but that's through a lot of effort and years and years of development to get as much torque out of this engine as it makes which is almost 700 foot-pounds right you got to work for it you got to add some turbos you got to put some smart thinking into it and that's what they've done here I mean you should see the factory the facility that this basically comes out of it's state of the art the Merlin engine is a hundred years old basically at this point those huge torque figures are just a part of a big displacement yeah we've come a long way haven't we yeah but the real question which one would you take the Merlin I think the Merlin understands the coolest party trick you could ever do laughs well Mr Leno thank you so much guys you're welcome anytime come on by we've got plenty of stuff to play with yeah so check out Jay on his channel follow us here at donut at donut media follow me at Jeremiah Burton follow him at Zac Joe you got an Instagram somewhere you'll find it just Google Jalen oh you got it bye for nowthis is a 1930 Bentley and it's got a big old Secret Under the Bullman this V12 airplane engine pumps out 650 and it displaces 27 liters that's this mini sodas and this is the W12 Continental GT it makes the same 650 horsepower and it only displaces six tiny liters today we're gonna find out what it's like to drive this 100 year old Behemoth and why it's possible to get the same amount of power today on a much smaller scale how can so much less volume make the same horsepower all right I'm going to give it a little throttle hang on everybody and at the very end Jay promised us that we could drag race no no I said if you scratch it I would drag you behind it sounds like a maybe walk with a donut this is the engine that's inside the 27 liter Bentley it's the Rolls-Royce Merlin and if you can't tell by the huge propeller it was built to be inside planes holy crap got his own trailer yeah look at this bees just this massive engine we are trying out one of these an hour Germans couldn't shoot them down fast enough that was American manufacturing back in the day most big high horsepower engines we see on this channel are built to push the boundaries of Motorsports or are extreme examples of people building overpowered cars for poops and Giggles but this engine and its insane displacement was built out of necessity so uh I got one question how do we turn this thing on left mag right mag watch out I haven't been this nervous for somebody else to start an engine in a long time oh my God coming out of Germany up to 400 miles and it's one of the reasons right here amazing holy crap we used to use these for air raid sirens how do you prevent hair loss well today's sponsor keeps makes hair loss prevention Easy by shipping your hair loss medication directly through your door at about half the cost of a traditional Pharmacy delivered right keeps medical providers will help select the right products and treatments for your specific conditions and hair goals all without ever visiting an office or Pharmacy and it's homegrown hair baby whether you're looking to prevent hair loss stimulate growth or just take better care of those follicles hair loss stops with keeps hair loss stops I already said that go to keeps.com Donut media and get a special offer today the giant displacement of this engine is a huge reason for its top speed but these massive Aero engines were also equipped with a supercharger giving the aviation versions of the Merlin over 1200 horsepower this is a supercharger and cool thing about it it's a two-speed supercharger as you're going higher higher up in the air because this is off plane the air thins out when that air thins out you need to put more in there so you switch into a second gear it spins faster sucks more air in allows you to make more power or up in the sky superchargers were created and refined by the aviation industry in order to push more air into the engine at high altitudes where the air is less dense now this stretched out Bentley that we'll be driving soon actually doesn't have a supercharger and that's because this engine was actually pulled from a friggin tank so this engine is naturally aspirated which is why we get that 650 horsepower figure which begs the question how can something so much more compact like that W12 produce as much power as this humongous engine at almost a quarter of the displacement well in order to understand the power and efficiency of this 21st century machine let's first talk about the engineering of the 1940s that went into creating this displacement monster foreign was designed to be in a plane so without the limitations of space in an automobile the engineers were able to ramp up the size of everything to produce those 27 liters it's also important to note that these things were designed to be shot at so nearly everything in this engine apart from the aluminum alloy heads is built from steel or a form of steel alloy and it's built free this thing also requires a whopping 17 gallons of oil to operate and all those parts add up to an engine that weighs about 3 500 pounds Jer it is hilarious how massive this car is but how tiny every seating position is maybe people were way shorter in the 30s now the engineering behind this engine is obviously incredible but when you start to think about all the forces required to move those heavy internals you'll start to understand the inefficiency and limits of an engine like this so in order for this engine to be put in this chassis this Bentley had to be stretched yeah 18 foot on the money pretty long let's just look at the length of this engine dude we got five and a half half feet of boldness face that's a lot of engine this isn't actually a 1930 Bentley this is fully custom this is an amazing build it's crazy that anybody even underwent this project it's like insane and it's really well done the Merlin Bentley is an impressive build with a ludicrous engine so how come the W12 is just as powerful at less than half the size now the W12 on the other hand displaces six liters but puts down the same power as the Merlin yeah if you're not familiar with the W12 engine it's essentially two VR6 engines mated together to a single crankshaft Jerry did a whole episode on the W12 on Bumper to Bumper Bentleys are known for being smooth riding cars but v12s are known as being very inherently balanced smooth engines so we figured why don't we put this to the test by using a stack of coins that we've super glued together I know that's illegal in all 59 States but I don't care I didn't do it I'm going to take these coins I'm going to put it right on the center of this engine and Joby is going to start it up and see if moves this engine is comprised of 294 individual elements Each of which have been developed with over a hundred years of trial and error and with today's modern technology to be as lightweight and efficient as possible modern Electronics more efficient it only weighs 540 pounds compared to 3 500 pounds so we've got the same amount of cylinders but the Pistons are so much smaller on that thing you know the bore is probably five inches five and a half do you know what the stroke is of that six inches five and a half inches by six inches that's basically like a coffee can and it's a lot of weight to sling around right modern day bores you're looking around the three and a half inch range which my girlfriend says is perfectly fine so the Merlin has raw power well the W12 has modern engineering on its side but the only real way to see the difference between them is to take them out on the road well what you have here it's an airplane engine that was used in a tank and now it's used in a car how much torque does this engine make well over a thousand foot pounds oh yeah what are you to say horsepower sales cars torque wins races this engine is meant to move an 80 ton tank don't forget it's very undistressed it's not moving 80 tons it's also got power steering which makes it a little easier yeah it seems you know like it's got pretty good road manners considering what it is you want to give it a shot I would love to foreign oh my God the front end is a mile away it feels humongous it feels like I'm driving a country I don't like that my head is the tallest thing on this thing you're the roll bar I know the big Bentley is a trip but the more you drive it the more you notice the shortcomings of such a massive engine it's so visceral I mean the noises it makes and the feeling you get kind of feels like you're driving an airplane the sheer weight of the Merlin works against its own power it definitely revs harder than the modern engine but it makes for a rougher ride even at 55 it feels terrifying to drive another Corner coming up hang on everybody ah no problem I like this stuff because it's more involving you don't know if you're gonna make it you can always get home in a modern car thing with planes was speed to climb you need octane you need more power it's the last of the great piston engines the Jets came in right after this they're always saying the phrase there's no replacement for displacement well that's kind of been replaced now ended to become so efficient when the Mustang came out in 65 it had 271 horsepower in the hypo version now when you get the four cylinder economy Mustang it's got 306 horsepower it doesn't matter it's doing it more efficiently all right let's take this new Bentley for a ride all right welcome to my Bentley yeah this is nice this is the new Continental GT convertible as you may be able to tell this thing is beautiful it's a statement piece but it's also pretty quick let's feel it it's a 5400 pound car to be able to move like that takes some serious engine makes a lot of horsepower which is cool one of the things that's modern Bentley can't hold a candle to compared to that older Merlin engine is the amount of torque it produces so this might be faster but if you were to do a little tug of war between the two I think this one would lose heavily this thing makes about 600 plus foot pounds of torque but Merlin makes 1200 foot-pounds almost double and the reason it can do that is obviously it's 27 liters you're getting a lot of displacement a lot of displacement that allows you to make a lot of torque so these two have the same amount of horsepower and horsepower pretty much tells you the amount of work your engine can do over a period of time whereas torque tells you how much force you can get in an instant as soon as that piston gets pushed down by the compression it's creating a force that torque is what you feel now one thing with a smaller engine like this it's never going to have as much torque as a 27 liter engine just never will are you saying there's no replacement for a displacement yes the physics of it aren't going to change just just because you wanted to Joe okay all right and one of the limiting factors of an engine that big making that much torque is that they don't spin very fast right that's a lot of Mass to get up to speed so if you have dig Pistons with big bores you create a lot of torque but when you start getting higher up in the RPMs it's harder and harder to spin that all that reciprocating mask without it coming apart without it coming apart exactly engines like these they make up for it by having lighter internal components everything is more efficient it's physic baby I didn't invent it Einstein did you do sort of replace that displacement with the turbochargers but that's through a lot of effort and years and years of development to get as much torque out of this engine as it makes which is almost 700 foot-pounds right you got to work for it you got to add some turbos you got to put some smart thinking into it and that's what they've done here I mean you should see the factory the facility that this basically comes out of it's state of the art the Merlin engine is a hundred years old basically at this point those huge torque figures are just a part of a big displacement yeah we've come a long way haven't we yeah but the real question which one would you take the Merlin I think the Merlin understands the coolest party trick you could ever do laughs well Mr Leno thank you so much guys you're welcome anytime come on by we've got plenty of stuff to play with yeah so check out Jay on his channel follow us here at donut at donut media follow me at Jeremiah Burton follow him at Zac Joe you got an Instagram somewhere you'll find it just Google Jalen oh you got it bye for now