Knocking Mr Crook......

[mrbennetts]

In the ongoing items about the proposed new club, there are a few comments about Mr Crook, which I felt were rather harsh. Anybody who keeps any company going for sixty years or so, especially a luxury car manufacturer, must be a good businessman. Mr Crook's methods may not be of our time, but he kept a factory going, plus workshops, and that means the continuous employment of many people for all those years. He must have been doing something right ! I couldn't have done it. Hey Ho. Got that off my chest.

[Markus Berzborn]

I'd like to support this point of view.
The proof is that Bristol is still there whereas so many other specialist car makers have failed, especially after the oil crisis of the seventies - Jensen, Iso and so on.
And this is probably mainly due to the strategy of keeping the company small and not being overambitious and producing more cars than can be effectively sold.

Regards,
Markus

[Geoff Kingston]

I totally agree with these sentiments. If it was not for Mr Crooks single minded determination to put a huge amount of personal effort and. financial resources into a company and product he obviously loved and thought the world of a lot of us would not be having this debate and exchange of views now.
I know from talking to Mr Crook at length some ten or eleven years ago, as a result of some bad and inaccurate advice regarding the spares situation for my 410 given to me by an officer of the BOC, that he felt very upset by the lack of support he was receiving from the club. Relationships were clearly not good then and a previous posting brought to light further information that years later things. basically had not really improved at all, to make matters worse it seems from the interview given to the German magazine Mr Herdman did not not think much of Mr Silvertons chances either!!. What I find disgraceful on reading that interview. was that he was saying in effect the company was finished and. was openly implying Mr Crook was telling lies, not the sort of thing I would have expected from any officer of the BOC talking to the press let alone one of its most senior representatives. If you look back at what the club was like 20 or 30 years ago you
will see to some extent why things are moving in the current direction, sad to say in the interim Mr Crook put a lot of resources into keeping our cars on the road only to receive a kick in the teeth from some quarters and I am sure if had had felt his position and his business was not being undermined relationships with the BOC would have been very different.
Regards,
Geoff.

[John Keighley]

Whatever Mr Crook did with Bristol Cars and how he went about it worked and it was arguably appropriate for the times. Does an approach that creates an enigma and and touch of mystique (either wittingly or unwittingly) help stir curiosity? You bet it does.
By the way, I have just finished reading Christopher Balfour's
Bristol Cars. It was well written, the information very comprehensive and made good reading.
John Keighley.

[browning l]

The early stories about Bristol products one has seen seem to have been directed simply at the product. For whatever reasons, in those days, writers apparently found little need to address management style or long-term goals.
In today’s more self-indulgent world, with those of an age who seem to fill most of the journalistic openings for publications interested in automobiles, such authors seem to assume rights that are actually not theirs, not too unexpectedly one feels, given their perceived vintage.
As I looked over the various magazine articles written about Tony Crook, who was still involved in Bristol when I bought my car in March of ‘08, but with whom I unfortunately never had the privilege of becoming acquainted, and his Bristol Cars firm, three themes seem to be close to universally present about the authors and their efforts…at least in those I have read:
Theme 1. The reluctance or disinclination or aversion to accept that Bristol was not, in almost every way it was possible not to be, the same sort of organization as other motor car manufacturers. Or, to put it another way, if the aims and necessities of Bristol were acknowledged, they seem to have been unheeded, disregarded, or worse, simply ignored.
The result? Usually, the entire thrust of the article is based on incorrect principles and/or expectations.

Theme 2. The insistence on ignoring the privileges of privacy inherent in private ownership. Actually, not just to ignore privacy, but demand, literally, that such ownership forfeit all such privileges. I have had some experience in private ownership of a manufacturing firm privately-held between 1886 and 1969, over four generations of one family; hence believe I can appropriately speak to this aspect of privately-held businesses.
It is certainly possible for publishers, editors, and writers to make such demands on privacy, but it always remains the prerogative of the owner(s) no matter how they are importuned, to ignore the demands.
The result? Whimpering writers complaining about not being treated as they feel they should have been. Just like children, whose immaturity they reflect.

Theme 2, No/little experience in manufacturing – the inability to understand the strengths required to balance and counteract all the forces imposing themselves upon management, much less the demands and expense inherent in making major design changes, whether mechanical or stylistic.
The result? No competent background on which to draw as the author attempts to tell the manufacturer what he needs to do to be more successful – successful not from the maker’s viewpoint, but from the writer’s.

With the coming of Mr. Chairman, Toby Silverton, private owner, or private owner representative, whose goals, needs, and resources seem to vary to some extent from those of Mr. Crook, we see, in more recent articles and in the reaction of some, though plainly not all, of long-term BOC members, a slowly awakening acceptance of the virtues of the principles on which Mr. Crook attempted to run his business, as they are present in Mr. S’s current management philosophy for Bristol Cars.

I again urge those who have not read Mr. Balfour’s book to do so, as John Keighley reports below he has done. Balfour investigated with the confidence of the living principals, and his writing shows very well the results of having done so. I think any modern day car magazine writer who does not read this book before beginning his other research does a great disservice to himself and whatever readers he may be lucky enough to have.

[irienz]

Discussion of Bristol Cars (and Bristol cars) among the owners of the latter is never given to shades of grey it seems.

My own views on the historical management of BCL are mixed. No one can fail to admire Mr Crook's firmness of purpose and single-mindedness of vision which has allowed BCL to survive, almost uniquely in this day and age, as a small manufacturer of cars since 1946. The essence of that survival indeed seems to have been a lack of hubris and determination to stick to what one did well, despite what others do or aspire to do, coupled with a realistic assessment of what was in fact possible and what I suspect was a real pride in, and affection and sense of responsibility for, the company, its history, its products and its employees. These are indeed admirable traits and the benefits to us all are apparent today in the company's remarkable survival.

There is another side however. As the car division, the marque had a distinctive approach to the design and manufacture of cars and stood for innovation and quality. The company appears to have had a confidence about its products and its unique design focus that contrasts strongly with the subsequent period of operation under Mr Crook. From about the 411 onwards, the company became increasingly less open about its products, their design and their performance. The marketing message over time shifted its appeal from distinctive design and quality focus to notions of exclusivity and undifferentiated "differentness". One suspects that, lacking the ability and funding to innovate and to carry the torch for the original Bristol values, new values were invented which lay within the company's more limited abilities.

The Crook years represented the creation and building of a new Bristol image. The "exclusive and different" image was cultivated by secrecy about the cars and the company. Development and modification was hinted at but the details never disclosed (and the claims therefore could neither be verified nor disproved). The motoring press were increasingly kept away from the products. Historical mythology regarding Mr Crook's role in the initial creation of the marque in 1946 was created and fostered.

Withdrawal of the cars from the motoring press and the cultivation of a press reputation for avoiding press exposure was arguably a masterstroke of marketing - the cars were no longer portrayed as advanced designs of distinctive quality and were instead talked about with reference to having a "Saville Row" image. The strategy minimised the "Emperor's New Clothes" risk of exposing the cars to outside scrutiny and the adverse conclusions which might have been drawn from revealing the actual production activity (or lack thereof) over many years. It may well be the case that BCL's survival required this form of rebranding and secrecy but it is dubious to criticise the motoring press for failing to understand BCL's values if they were neither exposed nor espoused.

Against that background, the activities of BOC were inevitably counter-productive and de-mystifying (as the activities of any owners' club acting in the interests of their membership would be) and the rather strange historical tension between BOC and BCL is perhaps understandable for that reason alone.

The subsequent change of ownership and management has seen the marque undergoing another, and very welcome, change in image and projected values. Although the analogy has not so far been used as far as I am aware, BCL now represents the overlooked benefits of traditional values brought up to date, in the same way that current manufacturers of valve (or, for North American readers, tube) amplifiers, full-range drivers, vinyl LPs and turntables represent those values so successfully in high end audio. The differentness is now revealed to have substance and tangible benefit (other than merely in image) and the new values are demonstrated and advocated by BCL in its products which it is not afraid to show off. BCL now manifests real confidence in what it does again and is not afraid to show how it is different rather than just behaving unconventionally and claiming to be different.

Bristol owners and admirers owe Mr Crook a debt of gratitude for the remarkable survival of the company but we should not be blind to what was done to the marque image and values during that period and we should feel a sense of relief that the marque is yet again re-inventing its values in a more positive vein under its new ownership.