Words in the July 2011 issue of Motor Sport

[lansdownplace]

Surely it is the chassis that is the common DNA to all Bristols (other than the Fighter). Why not start with the chassis and drivetrain from your favorite Bristol driving experience package and build a one off body to your own design on it? Jeff Marsh is about to offer this option from his new enterprise in Bristol I believe.

I did wonder if it would have been a good product line for Bristol to offer before the big change. You buy a complete rolling chassis, and then you get your design built in CAD so you can see what you are getting and can tweak it accordingly, a buck gets built and the body is coachbuilt in traditional British manner for you. Porsche and Ferrari do this, for a fee of about a million quid, but I suspect that in the real world a Bristol of your own would cost 150 to 200k and would last your lifetime.

Personally I would avoid fiberglass on any car that is intended to have a prestige element, the big trend in replicas now seems to be aluminium due to reductions in tooling costs and the wider availability of superforming for small series production as well as customer demand. This further reinforces the need to avoid fiberglass which is very much associated with kit cars. It is a bit of a false economy and it just doesn't provide a class A paint finish which is one of the other defining features of Bristols.

P

[Markus Berzborn]

I think Bristol would have done this within the limits of their possibilities if you had asked them.
For instance the body panels of the Blenheim 4 discussed here in the forum also largely differ from the standard model. Or look at the Speedster/Roadster.

And it's much easier to do on a separate chassis than with a monocoque construction.
In fact this was standard practice for luxury car manufacturers before World War II.

Regards,
Markus

[Kevin H]

As one hand built car manufacturer fails another flourishes.

Bufori

[browning l]

Originally Posted by Kevin H

As one hand built car manufacturer fails another flourishes.

Bufori

Gackkkkkk!

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted by browning l

Gackkkkkk!

Bufori owners may say the same about your Bristol 603, but that's not the point.

The point is, they make hand built cars from scratch, to individual specifications using modern materials and technology. Their power train even comes from the same company as Bristol's did.

The difference is Bufori flourished as Bristol faltered, after 60+ years in business. The reasons why may be worthy of consideration.

[Ronald G. Stephenson]

When it comes to cars, there are so many opinions going around that one wonders why people even bother to take on a brand and do their damnedest to stick with it. In Ameria, the names of cars that have come and gone number in the thousands. When automobiles were new to the scene, it seems that everyone with an idea and a little financing tried their hand at building cars. And, just a quickly as a 'new' name appeared on the scene, a few others bit the dust. Like Aston, Bristol was fortunate for a few years to find a patron or two to keep the marque alive. When the money ran out the game was over. I think most of us could name the many different brands that were some of the best that could be offered at the time. For various reasons, they died away.....

[Thor]

For a marque to have a strong following and therfore a chance of survival it must have a reputation for something special. The following are one-phrase answers, but they are intended as illustrations, not debating points(!), with qualities from 1950s : Austin - good value, Alfa-Romeo - good handling, Jaguar - styling, Rolls-Royce - luxury and quietness, BMW - good engines, Rover - solid reliability, up-dating to the present, and marques are meant to have all of these things. Bristol, had they ever gained a large following, would have done so because of the engineering excellence of their approach, leading to far better ride/handling/grip compromise than was available anywhere else. The 2.0 engines were good too, but were inadequate against larger competition, they might have carried on if Bristol had launched a smaller, lighter 'sports' model in the 1960s, alongside the luxury cars. These excellent chassis characteristics are too esoteric to build a brand following on, unfortunately, so the growth to a larger company never happened.

It is a sad fact that in many ways all the modern chassis technology has achieved so very little. Tyres have improved enormously, but all that has happened to car design is that cars have tended to get wider and lower. Wider and lower will improve the ride/grip compromise, but it is not very technical. I would contend that for its width, the Bristol chassis made better mechanical use of the tyres than anything else, but the way cars were marketed and compared in those days presumably didn't get this across well enough.

A Blenheim is still a good car, but for all sorts of difficult-to-market reasons. Its qualities are good but not outstanding, but then almost all modern cars are like that. The type of people who have the money to buy one don't want to work so hard at understanding why they are choosing a car, most just want to buy a brand.