Deep in the Norfolk countryside, hidden in a sprawling set of barns behind an innocuous bungalow, lurks a monster.
A 27-litre Rolls-Royce Meteor engine, originally from a 1980s Centurion tank deployed in the first Gulf War, sits among an eclectic collection of classic cars, vans and motoring paraphernalia.
It’s all owned by brothers Nigel and Neal Davies, who bought the V12 Meteor more than 20 years ago and put it to work in the niche motorsport of tractor-pulling.
(For the uninitiated, this involves dragging a sledge as far as possible along a 100m clay track; the furthest distance travelled is the winner.)
“The farther you go, the heavier the sledge gets,” says Nigel. “It’s a battle between the immovable object and the irresistible force.”
This is a Strada, only three of which were ever built
The pair got into the sport in the early 1990s after seeing it at a show and thinking they’d give it a go.
They went on to win multiple British championships, at one point running three tractors of different sizes with various engines.
“We put a Jaguar V12 in a little tractor in the smallest class you can do and from there it grew,” says Nigel.
