Quote:
Originally Posted by Ashley James
I think the point I'd make is that AFN's history by DSJ is essential reading if you want accuracy for the early years of the Bristol Car Company.
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This was my thinking also, but it's difficult to know what the true story is.
Certainly LJKS was such a Bristol fan it's difficult to see him being completely objective and unbiased. But he did correct some assumptions he had made in
Bristol Cars and Engines when he wrote
A Private Car.
This Jenks book appears to be reasonably neutral when discussing the Aldington's part in the birth of Bristol Cars. For example it explains quite clearly the differences of opinion between Aldy and Sir George White and the fact that Aldy was not experienced with mass manufacture.
What is clear though, is that if it were not for the Aldington brothers efforts in flying to Germany and grabbing drawings, engines and so forth from the BMW factory, the Bristol Cars story would have started quite differently.
This has often been referred to as 'war reparations' but going by the account of the Aldingtons (who were actually there), it sounds more like they simply grabbed what they could because the Americans had ordered it all to be crated up and sent back to the US. Probably the only thing that was official war reparations was Fritz Fielder coming to work at AFN.
There is also at least one other version of events and it differs again from the accounts of both Jenks/Aldington and that of Setright. That is in "
The BMW Story" by Horst Monnich. (
not essential reading)
Talking of different historical accounts, there was an article about Sir George White IV and his Bristol 603 in the Dec 2008 issue of Classic & Sports Car. He explains that Sir George White II and the Aldingtons were "like chalk and cheese" with "quite different personalities". This is fair enough and probably quite true but then the article goes on to claim that the Aldingtons were dishonest with "tales" of dubious practices in the AFN service dept.
I think it is poor form to start publicly casting aspersions about people who are no longer around to defend themselves!