Spoke with Toby Silverton, Bristol Cars

[Claude]

Originally Posted by Ronald G. Stephenson

It is the King Thing!

It's amusing to look up this gentleman's first posting to find the heading "Anglophile seeking Bristol Project".

One would expect a love of all things Anglo would include its titular head of state, but obviously not.

[Peter Grace]

At the risk of antagonising Our Great Founder by staying off topic, surely Claude you can love a nation without loving the head of that nation. For instance, like Americans but not like Bush (or Obama for that matter)?

[GREG]

Originally Posted by Peter Grace

At the risk of antagonising Our Great Founder by staying off topic, surely Claude you can love a nation without loving the head of that nation. For instance, like Americans but not like Bush (or Obama for that matter)?

Or, like Obama but not like Americans ! :-)

Pointless comment creating a pointless debate ? Thanks Ronnie !

[jimfoz]

Originally Posted by orange_eric

' Staying busy on Series VI remods, and buying and selling used cars' so does this mean the end of the current model line up as we know it?

If it is, why haven't they taken them off the web site?
Probably they are in a bit of a quandry. The likely scenario is that if only a couple of people call to order a Blenheim or Fighter in the next few months is it worth them spending time building them from scratch? Far better and more profitable to get a basket case 411/412/603 and do it up to S6 standard. I wouldn't be surprised if they give a non-comittal answer....

[Planet]

I feel sorry for the company that have taken on Toby as the Managing Director, won't be long before he kills them off as well! He needs to take responsibility for what he did to Bristol Cars and stay well away from them.
What a load of rubbish about them keeping on the 'key' employees - they most definitely haven't! They probably would not be prepared to work with Toby anyhow, after the despicable way that he treated them!

[lord sward]

WHOA! Thats a bit harsh unless you've evidence to back that up.

[TBC]

It is my experience that people find it easy to lash out and accord blame, whether that blame is justified or not.

As this forum finds its contributors from around the world it would not be fair to criticise comments made by said contributors, however when a company goes into receivership/administration generally no warning is given to the employees; should this be the reason for comments made.

As for Toby's predicament, and I am in no way privy to the business dealings of BCL, he obviously had good reason for actions taken, otherwise why bid to buy your own company back (if it was a complete basket case as someone mentioned)?

As for FNG, I would imagine that they see BCL as a shop window for their products (they use the word "showcase" on the BCL website), in the same way that large corporations buy luxury brands to improve their image, they don't necessarily need to make money as long as the main product line benefits from the publicity; I forget just how many millions of Euros the VAG group are losing on every Veyron they build....

If FNG can make a fortune selling their products (electric drivetrains) to main stream manufacturers by proving their worth in a Bristol or two, even if BCL never makes money, they will have more than recouped their intial investment.

I think what is needed is for FNG/BCL to come out and state what they intend to do with the current line up, as their statement on the home page of the BCL website is extremely vague, "as we are certain that our technology will blend seamlessly and successfully with the Bristol Cars tradition of engineering integrity" and smacks of mis-direction to me....