ramone:
I`ve just recieved the latest AEC Gazette and inside is an article on the 700 headless engine which was a top secret design with only 1 engine ever being built.Dr Mueller apparently discussed the possibilities of a headless engine with Sir Henry Spurrier but then left the company in 1959 .The reason that the 700 was dropped and then the 500 built was that the engine was too tall which made it unsuitable for normal production vehicles hence the scaled down 500 .The engine was designed at the Research and development department at the Spurrier works .A Norman Tattersall who was a chief engine designer at Leyland was in charge of this project
According to the Knowles report the Leyland 500 engine size ( as opposed to the 700 AEC ) seems to have been set from the outset by Spurrier ( obviously under the advice of Mueller ).While the comments stating that, ''Spurrier’s ‘ambition’ was to see Leyland express trucks plying the ‘autobahns’ of ‘peacetime Germany’ using an engine of 8 litres to do the work of an 11 litre + engine 
seem to confirm that and are obviously more than just a coincidence and not something just dreamt up by Knowles. 