Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin H
That's interesting Bryn. Was it based on the sum of the bore of all cylinders in the engine? (surely not the bore of one cylinder?)
Nevertheless, there does appear to have been some favouritism shown to the US market. Some of Chrysler's cars available in the US were never offered in Canada and Canadian cars were still given the older poly engines after the US market had moved on to the B series engines. Not a bad thing for earlier V8 Bristol owners looking for parts!
As for the "Crook bunch", I don't think we should be too harsh on them. After all they had a private car company to run which needed to be profitable. Maybe their use of cheaper engines was one of the reasons why they outlasted all other prestige marques that bought in a Chrysler power train, and many other companies who developed their own. In fact if it wasn't for the cost of developing the Fighter, Bristol still might never had gone bust.
Of course we now know the "Bristolisation" of Chrysler engines was BS, but in those days, in the UK market at least, most car manufacturers marketing departments were full of it  |
You are quite right of course. Bristol survived amazingly well where others like Allards and Alvis had to fold, and the salvation was largely due to finding the right American engine and packaging it very well (because of course Allard and Alvis and other UK luxury manufacturers had been using American V8's for quite a while too). I do however find the Crook & Co. variety of BS very condescending and arrogant when read. Bristol did however do many things very well, and certainly any V8 Bristol would outhandle any of the Chrysler Corporation products using the same power train. Other things like the owner's handbook and parts books were exceptionally well done for such a small manufacturer, and must have cost a fortune relative to production numbers, and for me the 408 to early 411 cars were lovely beasts indeed.
There were big differences in the US and Canadian market. Primarily because Canada was poorer and more agricultural than the US, and so Canadian models tended to be more spartan, although just as large. Canadians tend to be very large, after all! Quite a few manufacturers would not offer V8 engines in Canadian models, but only a couple of straight six models. This was probably true until the mid Sixties, when Canadian prosperity increased greatly to be close to par with the US.
Taxable Horsepower:
This was pretty common and found in most European countries in one form or another dating from the 1920s up to the post WW2 period. Most systems were based on bore and stroke and number of cylinders, but the British system was largely unique in being based entirely on bore (expressed as piston surface area) and number of cylinders, to the exclusion of stroke, probably since the ratio between bore and stroke was fairly uniform in early cars. The British system was the RAC system, but it was also employed throughout the British Empire and Commonwealth. I don't know when it was phased out, but you Australians would have had it too. The Canadian Plymouths and Dodges (in Canada frequently just badge engineered, unlike the US) were exported in large numbers to the Commonwealth, and so the story is that the 318 was reduced in bore to 313 not just for Canada, but to satisfy export requirements from other CW countries. If you can find when these RAC rating-based taxes were phased out in Australia it would be very interesting. In UK, 1948 saw their demise, since their inevitable consequence had been to lengthen stroke dramatically, but one presumes the Commonwealth kept them on for another decade or so.
Note:
RAC horsepower was calculated by taking the piston diameter in inches and squaring it, then multiplying by the number of cylinders and dividing the product by 2.5. Quite arbitrary eventually, but in 1925 or so not very far off for a BHP estimate.