The De-Havilland ( Ah De-Havilland!) DH-121 was originally designed as a large airplane and would have been powered with Rolls-Royce Medway engines. The "experts" at BEA said it was too large and the ground gripper was born. So after three tries they arrived at the final model which was almost the same size as the original DH design. In the meantime the Medway engines were not produced so it had no suitable engines which led to the fitting of the plastic boost engine.
Another good design screwed up by the BEA/BOAC "experts"! The latest VC_10 book shows what could have been without the "experts" and politicians!!
The Ambassador was another one, a beautiful airplane that also flew very well but it had a very small fuel capacity. The BEA "experts" only wanted it to go to Paris so it got very little fuel tankage.