Looks like there’s some choice Concorde jet memorabilia on eBay right now, including a few coffee cups and plates from the galley. Also: a Rolls-Royce Olympus Turbo-Jet 593-610 engine, for about a million bucks.
Here’s hoping somebody with a YouTube channel buys it so we can watch Everything Wrong With My Cheap Concorde Jet Engine and related titles such as I Bought A Cheap Concorde Jet Engine, Here’s Why The Concorde Engine Is Worth $975,000 and of course I Concorde Jet-Swapped My Miata (thumbnail text: CRUSHED THE CAR?!?!)
This is one of those weird classified ads where a ridiculously odd and expensive item is being sold like any other tchotchke, which I always find a little weird, but what do I know. If it’s your dream to drop £748,000 (about $975,000)
on an immobile memorial to one of mankind’s greatest achievements in propulsion, don’t let me stand in your way. The listing promises a “certificate of authenticity,” anyway.
The listing also says “it must only be used for static display,” but come on. If you’re eccentric enough to drop this kind of money on a jet engine, you’re not going to let some scribbling from the seller stop you from bringing it back to life and attaching it to something. Anything! I’m serious about wanting to watch those YouTube videos.
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If you want to know more about the history and science of this mighty Rolls-Royce Turbo-Jet, which is about 18 feet long and five feet high, Heritage Concorde is a great resource.
That site gives the engine the introduction it deserves:
“The engine chosen [for the Concorde] was the twin spool Rolls-Royce Olympus 593, a version of this Olympus engine had originally been developed for the Vulcan bomber, and then developed into an afterburning supersonic engine for the BAC TSR-2 strike bomber and then in association with the French company Snecma Moteurs, this had been adapted for Concorde, with the final version fitted to the production aircraft known as the 593 mk610.”
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Heritage Concorde also explains that the aircraft used four of these engines, which you might have already known if you’ve ever seen a picture of it, and of course the plane could scream across the sky at more than 1,300 mph; over Mach 2.
I couldn’t figure out what one of these engines would have cost when it was new, since they weren’t exactly being sold off the shelf to consumers, but the list price on a Concorde if you wanted one in 1975 was $33,800,000, almost $159,000,000 in 2019 dollars. $975,000 for an important piece of one seems like a bargain, then.
Hat tip to Silodrome!
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