Bristol History Query

[Robby B]

Having read the Bristol Cars book by Christopher Balfour, have been fascinated by the paths not taken by Bristol such as a plan to build 5000 cars a year instead of 500, the possible usage of the pre-war BMW M335 engine as well as a way to possibly retain its former commercial division amongst other tidbits including the Type 220/240 and 225 projects suggesting the company's history could have gone in a completely different direction.

Particularly interested to know if the forum is aware of any additional details about the Type 160 Twin-Cam inline-6 engine beyond the Jaguar XK6 being used as a benchmark during development and displacing roughly 2.9-3.65-litres (bore and stroke not mentioned)? There seems to be some confusion whether it was an all-new design or some twin-cam development of the pre-war BMW M335 engine, otherwise is it known what power figures were achieved with the Type 160 engine before it was cancelled?

[STELLWAG P]

Good morning all.
A very interesting engine would also have been the Heinkel Meteor 6 cyl. one,
constructed for the Veritas Meteor race cars.
A very expensive engine, with all roller bearings on the Hirth type crankshaft.
It was based on the same block as all 6 cylinder engines, we know very well.
I have only found one book about that car manufacturer.
Best regards

Peter Stellwag

[Stefan]

The Heritage Trust does have quite a large amount of material on the development of this engine, glean from kind donations from the estates of Tony Crook, Dudley Hobbs, Dennis Sevier as well as our purchases from the sad Windlesham bankruptcy.
There's more articles, or probably a whole book in this; much of our hitherto unseen material (currently locked down in the city of Bristol archive) will repay serious research.
Among our acquisitions are; descriptions of both versions of the all-new engines, the 3 L version, and what was eventually the 3.65 L, photographs of wooden mockups and also of the engine itself, Original watercolour artworks showing a variety of exotic coachwork built on this car, an interview with Alex Moulton describing the prototype test car for which he had made the all rubber suspension,(see our website for this interview) two wooden models of possible coachwork versions, engineers report on a test to destruction of the engine, accounts with various costs, and sundry correspondence yet to be sorted.
All will be revealed in due course when we can get round to it. The 3.65 engine would've put Bristol on a par with its rivals Aston Martin, Ferrari and the (much cheaper) Jaguar.
The quality of design and construction are evident and IMHO far above the competitors I have mentioned. It would've been a Maserati eater. Ahhh, what might have been…
We are still negotiating for the remainder of the Bristol Cars Ltd plans and drawings and have undertaken to beat any genuine bid. Watch this space and wish us luck.

[Robby B]

Originally Posted by Stefan

All will be revealed in due course when we can get round to it. The 3.65 engine would've put Bristol on a par with its rivals Aston Martin, Ferrari and the (much cheaper) Jaguar.
The quality of design and construction are evident and IMHO far above the competitors I have mentioned. It would've been a Maserati eater. Ahhh, what might have been…
We are still negotiating for the remainder of the Bristol Cars Ltd plans and drawings and have undertaken to beat any genuine bid. Watch this space and wish us luck.

Look forward to more details eventually being uncovered about the 3.0-3.65-litre Type 160/220 engines, intrigued by the comparisons with the Twin-Cam Sixes from Aston Martin, Jaguar and Maserati.


Have also been reading of another path that could have potentially benefited Bristol had they been in a better position, provided of course the company would still be immune to any Not-Invented-Here syndrome in the event the Type 160 Twin-Cam Six reached production.

Basically Bristol could have acquired the car division of Armstrong-Siddeley (kind of like Jaguar did with Daimler in real life). Based on what was mentioned in Bill Smith’s Armstrong Siddeley book and amongst the notable things mentioned of what Armstrong-Siddeley had in their cupboard aside from additional production capacity once used for the Sunbeam Alpine (along with a mk2 Star Sapphire successor, an off-road vehicle similar in conception as the Land Rover and the Powertruck generate vehicle prototype), was an all-alloy 4.6-litre V8 OHV project (originally envisaged with Twin-Cams) that Armstrong Siddeley was working on to put out about 200 hp.

The V8 was derived from two 2290cc Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire 234 4-cylinder engines with scope for the V8’s displacement to be further increased to 5.3-litres, via a bored out 2660cc 4-cylinder version of the 120 hp 2290cc Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire 234 unit - essentially a 4-cylinder version of the 3990cc 6-cylinder Star Sapphire engine (that Bristol themselves would test in a 406 at one point). The latter are best described as a redesigned simplified OHV version of a W.O. Bentley designed Twin-Cam Chinese copy of his own Lagonda Straight-6 engine developed when he was at Armstrong-Siddeley for a sportscar before it was repurposed to power the Sapphire saloons (reduced to 2651-2965cc for the Humber Super Snipe).

It is worth mentioning the 120 hp 2290cc 4-cylinder engine in the Armstrong-Siddeley 234 was said to be capable of being easily tuned up to 150-180 hp, implying a doubled up 4.6-litre+ V8 would put out a similar level of power as the Chrysler V8 engines that Bristol would soon become associated with for the next few decades beginning with the 407.

Another notable element would be the Armstrong Siddley V8 prototype engine's distant similarities to the Tadek Marek designed Aston Martin V8 project (MP213), which made used of shared parts, knowledge and experience gained with his previous six cylinder unit (that was itself seemingly a further development on his substantially redesigned Lagonda Straight-6).


Also fascinated by George White's plans to purchase English Racing Automobiles (either in place of or together with Aston Martin before David Brown acquired the latter), together with HJ Aldington's pre-war attempt to organize joint production of the pre-war BMW designs with Riley (it is not clear if he later tried to acquire Riley or its assets before losing out to Lord Nuffield and Morris).

Especially given the history George White had with ERA's Riley engines in the Bulldog powerboats and the unrealized potential of a very useful 106 hp 2443cc Riley Big Four-based 4886cc V8 engine in the post-war era (unlike the earlier pre-war Riley Nine based Riley 8/90 and Riley 12 based Autovia V8 engines respectively).