On the 29th of December 2022, the Green Spirit Pulling Team from Biervliet in the south of the Netherlands have revealed the first 2 pictures of their new light modified project on Facebook. The Dutch team around Peter de Regt already started with the planning of the new project in 2019 and with the building of the tractor in the winter of 2019. It's the first time, since 1986, that a modified tractor from the team will not have a Rolls-Royce Griffon V12 aircraft engine on the chassis. The new Green Spirit 9 will have 2 Rover Meteor V12 tank engines on methanol. The most exciting stuff on the engines will be the superchargers. The Rover engines will have a own developed radial blower with a homemade aluminum housing and intake impeller wheel. The whole injection system on those British tank engines is supposed to be electric, with a custom-built Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI) system. It is not the first time that the Green Spirit Team is using Rover Meteor V12 engines on a pulling tractor.
Already in 1985, the guys used a Rover Meteor tank engine on Green Spirit 2 as a power plant for one season before they switched to Rolls-Royce Griffon aircraft engines. In 2003, after around 18 years, the team put again a Rover Meteor engine on a pulling tractor. On the Optima Spirit (also known as Green Spirit 5) the Dutch guys mounted alongside the methanol-powered Rolls-Royce V12 Griffon engine in stair step configuration a twin-turbocharged methanol-injected Rover Meteor V12 on the chassis. The Green Spirit Team competed with that combo for 3 seasons in the 3.5t and 4.5t modified class until the driveline flew apart at the Euro Cup in Bettborn, Luxembourg in 2005. After that, the Rolls-Royce Griffon/Rover Meteor modified tractor combo never returned. Also, for the first time in their team history, the new Green Spirit 9 will have a Domex wedge frame instead of a chrome-moly / Docol tube frame. Currently, the tractor is around 70-75% ready and the components for the new own developed blowers for the engines are currently in the making at the CNC mill. But it's still a lot of work to do before the new twin-blown Rover Meteor V12-powered Green Spirit 9 will hit the pulling tracks in the Netherlands and Europe. Usually, the maiden voyage of the new machine was already planned for 2022, but the whole development of the new parts, especially the new blowers, took more time than expected.
The maiden run of the new 2.5t/ 5500lbs light modified machine is planned currently for the 2023 season.
A bigger story on Pulling-World.com is already planned, there we will go even more into the technical details and background information about the new Green Spirit 9!
Stay tuned
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