Tomorrow morning.

Putschmobile BTW

OK t*ssers. (Management excepted)

Munich = BMW. But this is British. Clue steel alloy and WOOD frame. They only have one showroom in Kensington. To this day.

Chairman and HJ Aldington Managing Director.

HJ Aldington, who was still in the British Army, used his military connections to visit the bombed BMW factory in Munich several times in 1945, culminating in a 'duty' trip in October 1945, along with his brother and two Bristol representatives, to gather detailed plans of BMW cars and several development engines which they flew back to Bristol. This was quite a tricky manoeuvre as Munich had been declared part of the American Zone and the American Military had just issued orders for the BMW plant to be dismantled and crated up for shipment to the USA. These plans and engines were subsequently declared to be war reparations. BMW chief engineer Fritz Fiedler was also given employment at AFN where he continued development of the BMW 328 engine.

The first car, the 1947 Bristol 400, was heavily based on pre-WW2 BMWs. The body looked very like the BMW 327, while its engine and suspension were clones of BMW designs (engine and front suspension based on those of the BMW 328, rear suspension from the BMW 326). Even the famous double-kidney BMW grille was carried over intact.

Until 1961 all Bristol cars used evolutions of the 6-cylinder BMW-derived engine. This well regarded engine also powered a number of sports and racing cars, including all post-war Frazer Nash cars (apart from a few prototypes), some ACs, some Lotus and Cooper racing cars, and several others. In 1961, with the launch of the Bristol 407, the company switched to large Chrysler V8 engines, which were more suitable for the increasingly heavy cars. All post-1961 Bristols including the current Blenheim and Fighter models use Chrysler engines.

Until recent years, I always thought the French and Bristol had a monopoly on ugly cars, but the French have dropped out of the race, leaving Bristol the clear winners.

It has the lines of a TVR

Not uguly at all....quite a good looking little car.

 

1960 406 Would have made a lovely Bond car.

 

Idea is you can resell these to Bristol any time, and they rebuild them completely before selling them again

Is that a headlight in the middle?  Does it turn with the steering wheel like the Tucker?

 

T-Dog

Spotlight. No won't turn. Now illegal. They were all one firm Major will know.

The Citroen DS's

 of the '60s had rotating headlights.

 

Then you might remember they got very het up about  fixed headlights and front fork turning headlights on motorbikes.

 

The first Vespas had the headlight on the front wheel spat

Of course, the Coitroen Ds. Brilliant car, way ahead of its time with so many futeristic characteristics. Citroen have always been at the forfront in car design. They were the first European manufacturer to do away with chassis, for the pressed steel shell we see on all cars today. Rolls Royce copied their brakes and suspension. Also copied the Chrysler V8 engine layout.

Respectfully, I'd query the V8 engine on citroens. The early ones were aircooled flat twins and 4s and small cc because of French tax laws. The 2CVs were a con, sods to work on (inboard brakes etc) but in France you had a village mechanic with all the tools so no problem.

 

The 1986 BXs were the first watercooled straight 4s, I had one To convert to PAS only cost £10-odd. All they did was connect a hose from the huge hydraulic reservoirs. How much would it cost you To convert a statndard car? Fortune.

 

Actually i'm on my 3rd Xantia since 1996; 220,000 miles latest Diesel common rail engines are fantastic.

Not Citroen Flash, Chrysler V8