Cars for the Connoisseur
 

I came across this strange article ‘Bristol and Beyond’ in Cars for the Connoisseur. It suggests the article was written by TADC, but it is clearly written by the editor. I quote:

‘In July of last year I took a telephone call from Tony asking me in future to send Cars for the Connoisseur to his home address. He told me that he had turned up for work one morning, only to find a security man on the door barring his way and the locks changed to his office, and that of his long-time PA Anne-Marie. Naturally he was devastated to be removed from office in this way after so man years at the helm. Before Christmas I received a card confirming that he was no longer associated with the company and:-
He did not voluntary retire.
He is not working from home
He has not been ill and having a rest
Earlier this year the following announcement appeared:
“Due to a disagreement on the future running of Bristol Cars Tony Crook who had been with the company for over sixty years, most of the time as the sole shareholder, was dismissed. These matters were settled at mediation on the 7th of April 2008”

How true is this, I wonder?

George

Cars for the Connoisseur
 

Sadly it is accurate and I have to say that moral is much better
since it happened. It's very very sad but I've heard that there was
a degree of tension at BCL that is there no longer.
All things come to an end sooner of later and often not without pain.

Ashley

That's a very unpleasant way of ending it but I would assume that relations between Mr Crook and Mr Silverton had broken down completely (otherwise it doesn't say much for the incumbent management style).

Personally, I wonder whether Mr Crook was doing more harm than good in recent years, given his apparent complete intolerance for anyone who didn't toe the line (his line), including the BOC. Given that he tried to control who said what about the company on the outside, one can only guess what it must have been like inside the company.

All that aside, there aren't many company takeovers where the previous owner works contentedly alongside or under the new owners for very long, especially where the previous owner had his own way for the previous 20-30 years.