This glass-topped coffee table is made using a 6.75 liter Rolls-Royce V8 engine block as its base. The toughened glass top sits on four chromed columns and the block rests on four feet that are designed to not mark or scuff your floors.
The Rolls-Royce L-series V8 was also used by Bentley, the engine had a remarkably long 61 year production life, having entered service in 1959 and remaining in use as a power unit until it was replaced in the year 2020.
This illustration shows the inner workings of the Rolls-Royce L-series V8. Note that this is an early version of the engine with carburetors and no turbocharging.
The L-series V8 entered development in the early 1950s as a replacement for the British automaker’s previous straight-six, straight-eight, and V12 engine designs.
Interestingly Rolls-Royce had designed and built the first V8 engine ever used in a production automobile back in 1905, so in manner of speaking the new L-series engine was a return to their roots. The design of the L-series was relatively standard for the 1950s, it has a camshaft in the block with pushrods actuating two overhead valves per cylinder.
Early cars were carburetor fed but this was changed to fuel injection over time, later cars would remove turbocharging followed by turbocharging and intercooling combined. Rolls-Royce spent countless millions on development to keep the L-series relevant over the decades – ensuring it would meet increasingly stringent emissions regulations.
When ordering you can choose between Rolls-Royce and Bentley badging – as the same engine was used by both automakers.
The coffee table you see here is made from a chromed L-series Rolls-Royce engine block, the company that builds them is suitably called “Engine Tables” and they produce a wide variety including tables made from Aston Martin, Jaguar, Cosworth, Range Rover, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Bentley, and of course, Rolls-Royce.
Each table comes four legs designed to not mark or damage flooring, and the toughened glass top is made to British Standards BSEN12150. The overall height of the table you see here is 500mm and it weighs approximately 50 kilograms.
Images courtesy of Engine Tables
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
