There are people who collect stamps. There are people who restore old Fords.
And then there’s Simon Lipscombe, a man who looked at a 2,600lb-thrust jet engine on eBay and thought, “Yeah, that’ll fit in the back of a pickup.”
The eBay Special
“It’s from a Mk3 Avro Shackleton,” he says, as if that’s a totally normal sentence. The Shackleton, for the uninitiated, was a lumbering Cold War patrol plane powered by four Rolls-Royce Griffon V12s — and, for reasons best described as British engineering exuberance, an extra pair of jet engines to give it a nudge when the Germans, or later the Soviets, needed scaring off.
One of those jets — all 800kg of it — now lives in Simon’s garage in Kent. “It cost me and my dad two grand with a few extra bits,” he shrugs. For comparison, that’s less than the average bill for a modern car’s first service. But this isn’t your average car.
From Cold War to Cold Start
Simon, chief mechanic at a hire car firm, did what any sensible human would do: he learned how to start a military jet engine from YouTube.
“I screwed it to a trailer, chained it to a tree, and ran it up,” he says. His friends stood behind an 8ft dirt bank, presumably wondering if they should’ve updated their wills. “I wasn’t scared — too busy checking for oil leaks.”
It ran. Beautifully. Loudly. And, crucially, without turning Simon’s postcode into a smouldering crater. The question then became: what next?
Enter the Ford P100
Simon already owned a Ford P100 with a V8 in the back — because of course he did — so the next logical step was to get another one and install the jet engine. “The P100 can carry a ton and has an 8ft load bay,” he explains with the calm rationality of a man about to break several laws of physics. “The jet engine weighs 800kg and it’s short, so it fits.”
The pickup’s original 1.8-litre diesel remains up front to actually drive the thing. The jet engine, mounted proudly in the bed, provides… let’s call it extra thrust.
“You only want to drive it in a straight line under jet power,” Simon adds. “Jet engines don’t do corners. The centrifugal forces inside them like to keep things pointing one way — preferably forwards.”
We’d call that understatement of the year.
The Controls: Simplicity Itself
No fancy ECU, no fly-by-wire wizardry here. Just a small hand control with two buttons — one to kill the engine, one to nudge the throttle. It’s the kind of setup NASA would’ve used in 1962 and TopGear would absolutely test on a deserted runway with a slightly terrified presenter.
The engine itself is multi-fuel: petrol, diesel, paraffin, whatever’s handy. “Avgas is about three times the price of petrol,” Simon says. “So I’m relieved it’ll run on ordinary fuels.” Sensible, again — though “sensible” might be stretching the definition when your pickup can roast a cow from fifty yards.
Santa Pod Awaits
Insurance, predictably, is less enthusiastic. Simon can’t fire up the jet at public shows, so his plan is to take it to Santa Pod Raceway for a proper run. “They’ll probably only let me do a soft pass,” he says, “but it’ll be noisy — and interesting.”
We suspect “interesting” is Simon’s code for “possibly apocalyptic.”
And Because One Jet Pickup Isn’t Enough…
Having successfully mated one Ford with a jet, Simon’s now turning his attention to his other P100 — the one with the V8. “I’ve just bought a Nimbus 105 turboshaft engine from a Wasp helicopter,” he says, like a man announcing he’s just popped out for milk. “It’s shaft-driven, so I can connect it straight to the Ford’s axles. Should be fun!”
“Fun.” That’s one word for it.
The Takeaway
In an age where most cars whisper silently on electrons, Simon’s jet-powered Ford P100 is a glorious, petrol-fumed middle finger to quiet efficiency. It’s a tribute to curiosity, mechanical madness, and the eternal truth that with enough determination — and questionable restraint — you can buy a jet engine on eBay and make it fit in a pickup.
Sir Frank Whittle would be proud.
The neighbours? Less so.
Source: M4NTIS Racing Channel via YouTube