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Bristol Cars | £27.95 | |||
We are indebted to Tony Crook, Chairman and Managing Director of Bristol Cars, who has kindly shared with us some of his experiences covering the 55 years he has been associated with the company. I am often asked which is my favourite Bristol. Answer, the current one at the time. I believe each model has been an improvement. I do not think we ever made a bad car, although our inspectors were horrified by the workmanship of the coachwork on the handful of early chassis we were persuaded to sell without coachwork in Italy and Switzerland soon after the company opened. Highlights for me include my inaugural drives in the first 400 (I have still got it), the very first car. It was certainly not just a pre-war BMW made post-war in England. During World War 2 I owned a number of 2-litre BMWs, and very good they were too, but the Bristol 400 was not only an entirely new, different, more roomy shape but also bristled with new technical features and was made to the highest aircraft standards and very well soundproofed. So different was it that it was a pity we copied the BMW radiator grille! Then there was the 401/403 series; streamlined, wind tunnel tested body, making other contemporary cars look old hat. The 405, our only 405 model ever made, suffered perhaps from doors which were too small, but how well the car held the road and so relaxing, in part due to the new overdrive reducing the rpm/mph ratio. With production of the 405 model running at three cars per week we also made a total of 50 in all of the short chassis 404, our only two seater and so rare that one newspaper commented that the only way to have a chance of seeing one was to catch my car (MPH 100) in the paddocks of racing circuits! Incidentally this model 404 was the only car for which we produced production figures. Many inaccurate guesses and estimates of production figures for other Bristols have been made, all wrong! As we have not used, for instance, consecutive chassis numbering. Suffice to say that in 55 years of production we have made less cars than one luxury car manufacturer has produced in a few months. No wonder our cars are so rarely seen, and are thus so exclusive. The luxurious 406 model was a highlight because we, along with Jaguar, were the first manufacturers in the world to fit disc brakes. The additional weight of the 406 was offset by a slight increase in engine size. Rocket age performance came with the 407, our first V8, which was more than twice the engine size of the 406 2.2-litre, with coil spring suspension replacing the former transverse leaf spring. After exhaustive testing we brought out the 410, the first car we made with power steering. The additional speed of the larger engined 411 surprised the boy racers in the hatchbacks which were appearing. The greatest radical body shape change came with the introduction of the 412, the versatile coupe/saloon, and the 603 series which were both newly styled models. These proved as fast as previous models because they were fitted with further developed, smaller and lighter engines, and there was a general weight saving of the cars overall. They ran on unleaded fuel. Testing the pre-production Beaufighter was most stimulating, the first British car, and second only to Saab, to be turbocharged. The first car was completed in the middle of one night and I only drove it for 400 miles in the dark before handing it over to The Motor first thing in the morning. With only 400 miles on the clock, a rather tight engine and only guess tuned, it swooped from 0-60mph in 6.7 seconds. When run-in the car was even faster and the fuel consumption was halved by the time we later lent it to the next magazine. A while later the 603 and 412, (by that time the 412/S2,) series was replaced by three new models; the Britannia saloon, the turbocharged Brigand saloon and the turbocharged Beaufighter semi-convertible. Most road tests have been knowledgeably carried out, although some of the acceleration figures have been hand timed. There are a few howlers, such as that on one test the driver complained about wind noise on a 603, simply because he had wrongly used the air vent system. Recently I visited our factory in Bristol where Bristols of all ages are attended to, or renovated, by the operators when they can be spared from the latest car production line. What memories! I took out our very first car, my 1946 Type 400, then stepped into our latest car, the Blenheim 3, concluding that our fundamental aim to produce a fast, well mannered, roomy and safe, compact four-seater had not changed one iota. Nor have we had to make the cars any bigger outside. The Blenheim 3 is only one inch longer, and two inches wider, than the 401's of 1949 but it is a far more compact car than other manufacturers offering the same or less interior space. After more than two and a quarter million miles on road and track, I am happy indeed to reflect that so many of them have been done with my involvement in every Bristol model since we started 55 years ago. The story of Bristol is told using 132 contemporary articles drawn from international motoring journals. Included are road tests, new model reports & performance data. Models covered: 400, 402, 405, 406, 407, 408, 410, 411, Beaufighter, 603E/603S, Brigand, Britannia, Blenheim & Fighter. 320 pages, including 16 colour. 500 black & white illus. SB. SKU: BRQP ISBN: 9781855205635 |
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