Bristol Showroom, what is it now?

[Nick Challacombe]

This is just for general interest

Sometime ago a great friend of mine took on the lease of the old Bristol Showroom. It is now a main show room for Indian Motor cycles.
The chap runs a wonderful firm by the name of Krazy Horse. He has the franchises in our home town of Bury St Edmunds for Morgan ( he bought with Morgan the chassis supplied to Kam Corp. He also has Caterham , Dodge Ram, Dodge, MV Augusta, Caballero, Norton, Zero, Fantic and Zaeta bikes.
I thick TC would turn in his grave!!

The Cellar is called "The Vault" in which all accessories and clothing are sold.

He is also a great collector of classic cars, a real petrol head. he also has showrooms in Welling, Chipping Norton as well as Kensington High Street and Bury St Edmunds.

How times change!

[Claude]

Hi Nick, perhaps pass this suggestion on to your friend:

He sounds like the perfect person to buy the Bristol name and revive the marque. Remember, the one quality of Bristol was the price was determined by cost plus margin. At a limit of 3 cars per week, there are enough zillionaires out there looking for excellence at any price to keep such a business going as long as the owner is a passionate petrolhead like Tony... and if demand grows to 6 cars a week, just make sure the supply chain is scalable.

All one has to do is find the first zillionaire who will pay for the engineering to aircraft-quality not car standard, find a bespoke British firm to make the chassis (The Smallest Cog Ltd would be fun), make it electric powered, and Touring Superleggera (https://www.touringsuperleggera.eu/en/) designed body.

Don't give the zillionaire stock in the company - that was Tony's mistake. Instead promise they get serial No. 1 and naming rights (within reason) for the model they fund.

Offer two models: four door luxury and two door convertible grand tourer.

The key standard however, is to ensure all parts that will need repair during the cars lifetime (say 50-100 years) are accessible by ordinary mechanics with ordinary tools, and to select component parts from the highest volume car makers (Toyota, Honda, etc.) to ensure long-term parts availability. For the visible bits, like dash knobs, have them made by bespoke machine shops and publish the CAD drawings, so they can be made by anyone with a good 3D printer out of the best materials and most elegant design (think aero-chic). Ditto the interior - have it made by a leather upholsterer so it can be refurbished by any classic car restorer. Design around commonly available glass front and rear windscreens and use flat glass for the doors.

And if the current owner of the Bristol name won't sell, perhaps call it Kensington Motor Cars. The address your friend has acquired has as much panache related to Tony Crook's marque as the city where they were originally made.

Claude