Meet the Mannic Beattie: a 600bhp jet-engined hillclimb hero built in a shed

Nic Mann hands me a turbine blade. This, he says with a gleam in his eye, was originally part of the Rolls-Royce Olympus 593 turbojet that powered Concorde. Nic worked on that fearsome engine during his time at the aerospace giant in the 1970s, and remains transfixed by turbines. So much so that he’s used one to circumvent the lag in his hillclimb special, the Mannic Beattie.

Except that ‘special’ doesn’t even get close to describing this thing. Nic is supremely modest but his creation is close in spirit and execution to an F1 car. The kicker is, he designed, engineered and built it in his Berkshire garage for about £20k.

A beloved statesman of the hillclimb scene, Nic transformed his mother's Morris Minor in phases until it was running a turbocharged V8 with throttle modulated nitrous injection to the tune of about 550bhp. It was hooked up to a Jaguar XJ6 driveline and its torque outputs would regularly overwhelm the gearbox. Nic ran a 30.07s up Shelsley Walsh in the Moggie in 1986, only half a second slower than World Rally champion Hannu Mikkola in a works Audi Sport Quattro.

Photography: Huckleberry Mountain

He sold the Morris in 1990 and used the funds to start the next project. Nic wanted to create a record breaker, and inspired by the Mallock U2 single seater, all the usual parameters came into play – go big on the mechanical grip while reducing the centre of gravity, optimise the weight distribution, minimise the effects of lateral weight transfer. It would be all-wheel drive, have a flat floor and huge wings. After which, Nic headed down a more idiosyncratic path.

The engine is a four pot 1.7-litre Cosworth BDT (a staple of many a fast Ford, including the Group B RS200), canted over at 25° on the intake side to help the centre of gravity. That was good for about 400bhp, which meant Nic needed forced induction to make the numbers he wanted. And that meant lag, which he didn’t want. Enter a compact gas turbine, originally used as an auxiliary power unit in helicopters.

Watch the car in action and you’ll detect a distinctive whooshing sound as Nic prepares to launch himself up a hill. That’s the turbine, spinning at 90,000rpm. It’s started by compressed air using an external starter but only after the main engine has been fired up. An ingenious but complex solution, my head spins almost as fast as the turbine as Nic explains how it works. Basically, it runs separately from the ICE and delivers air to it at a constant pressure independent of the main engine speed. Ergo, zero lag, and an overall power output of 600bhp (give or take).

The transmission is from the Ford Sierra XR4x4, a tidy setup that features epicyclic transfer gear and a viscous coupling. The front and rear diffs are from a Lotus Elan, the front suspension uprights a MkII VW Golf GTI, the rears from a Ralt single seater. Nic fabricated the chassis from CDS steel tubing, and laid up the composite panels on the front wings himself. Yep, that’s homemade carbon fibre. The big aero parts are made of sheet aluminium, the sidepods of birch plywood.

You'll detect a whooshing sound, that's the turbine spinning at 90,000rpm

When Nic became acquainted with former BAR and Ferrari F1 aerodynamicist Willem Toet, himself a successful hillclimber, it helped finesse his instincts on downforce. He also verified his thinking using F1 grade computational fluid dynamics tools (thanks to Miqdad Ali). Which is how Nic’s home brew racer ended up with a blown rear diffuser that helps drop the ride height by 40mm at 140mph, a high rake stance not dissimilar to the 2021 Red Bull RB16, and an aerodynamic centre of pressure that would get Adrian Newey’s attention. 

At 100mph, it produces well over its own weight in downforce, Nic says, so somewhere in the region of 750kg. The car has also set and broken all sorts of records, and holds the Shelsley specials record with a time of 25.47 seconds. That the man is still chasing tenths at the age of 73 is just as impressive. “But it’s time to hand it over to someone else, which is one of the reasons I’m talking to you,” he says a little ruefully. “If anyone gets in touch, let me know.” Top Gear is happy to help...