Round badge and kidney grille. Bristol 401 of 1949-1953.
At the end of World War 2 America got Werner von Braun and the V2 rocket, Britain Fritz Fiedler and the BMW 327. NASA made the most of von Braun and his rocketry, and now after 75 years as Bristol Cars goes into administration, the last vestige of Archie Frazer-Nash’s (AFN-Islewortth) 1930s connections with the Bayerische Motoren Werke passes into history.
In 1945 Germany was awash with technology ready to be purloined as war reparations. Sydney Allard spotted the Steyr V8, a fierce 3.5 litre air-cooled engine designed by Dr.Ing. (hc) Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951) for Steyr-Daimler-Puch’s RSO Raupenschlepper Ost (Caterpillar tractor East). The Wehermacht needed a lightweight tracked artillery vehicle for 1942 Russian snow, Allard had been borrowing Ford V8s in the 1930s for his trials cars and post-war Clapham-made sports cars. In 1947 a new British Hill-Climb Championship sent him looking for an engine in his new single-seater.
In 1946-1947 there was not been a lot of speed sport. Europe started to run grands prix but Silverstone was a barren airfield, its perimeter track tried out only tentatively. Brooklands was long gone, Donington still a lorry park. There were speed trials and sprints, races on Jersey and the Isle of Man or obscure circuits like Gransden; almost the only places proper left-over racing cars could compete were hill-climbs; Prescott, Shelsley Walsh, Craigantlet in Northern Ireland, Bouley Bar on Jersey and Bo’ness near Linlithgow.
Allard could run his special against under-employed racing cars from the 1930s, but his Steyr was not the only automotive curiosity from war-torn Germany as restitutions or even “booty”. The proprietors of Archie Frazer-Nash’s former enterprise in Isleworth Harold Joseph (1902-1976) and Donald Arthur Aldington (1907-1997) made their own way to Munich. AFN had not only imported BMWs, as Frazer Nash-BMWs in the 1930s, they also developed close personal links with the Bavarian Motor Works. As soon as the war was over HJ Aldington flew, ostensibly to reclaim a BMW 328 crashed at Hamburg in 1939, but brought back one of the precious 1940 Mille Miglia 328s
https://dovepublishing.co.uk/titles
JIM CLARK: Tribute to a Champion by Eric Dymock
MG Classics by Eric Dymock. Model by Model, Books 1, 2 and 3
Colin Crabbe pictured at Kinloss on the 1993 Ecurie Ecosse Tour with his family Frazer Nash BMW 327. Bought by his father from AFN in 1937, recovered and restored, alongside the 1940 Mille Miglia BMW 328.
BMW was not going to resume making cars any time soon and AFN was looking to its future. The Aldingtons knew that the Bristol Aeroplane Company was contemplating cars to replace aircraft production when the war finished. They suggested that something like a BMW 327 might be just what it was looking for. Chief engineer Sir Albert Hubert Roy Fedden MBE, HonDSc, MIMechE, MIAE, MSAE, HonFRAeS, (1885-1973) had been dabbling in car designs since 1942 and wanted Bristol to embark on a latter-day peoples’ car. The old aero engine manufacturer didn’t agree. It was more up-market than that. It spotted an opportunity with the Aldingtons and took a majority shareholding in AFN instead.
It was easy for Bristol, once the war ended, to obtain clearance to visit Munich. Ostensibly it wanted to inspect BMW’s high altitude test facility but the AFN Aldingtons joined in. A Stirling bomber was requisitioned to bring back technical drawings and details of 326, 327 and 328 BMWs. It also liberated two engines, a 318 1.8 litre twin-cam prototype and a 335, 3½ litre, Bristol taking the 2 litre officially as a war reparation, together with Fritz Fiedler, who had designed its ingenious cross-pushrod cylinder head along with Rudolph Schliecher. A BMW engine freshened-up with Bristol metallurgy was tested by May 1946 and fitted into a BMW 327/8. The resulting Bristol 400 at the 1947 Geneva Motor Show made no attempt to hide its origins. The stylish 2-door 2+2 coupé even had a BMW-style kidney grille and circular insignia.
Pioneer. First Bristol 400 of 1947-1950. A BMW hand-made, improved and better furnished.
The Bristol Aeroplane Company was never daunted by complication, believing that given sufficient care, nothing was too much trouble. Manufacture of its sleeve-valve 14-cylinder two-row air-cooled radial Hercules engines was carried out with the same meticulous care as at Rolls-Royce, so it forgot the troublesome Fedden project. Instead the first Bristol Type 400 took the best features of the BMW 326 (chassis, transmission), 327 (body) and 328 (6-cylinder engine with ingenious cross-pushrods providing classic inclined-valve head). The downdraught inlet tracts made the engine tall, providing an installation problem when it was used in the AC Ace sports car, Frazer Nashes, and the Cooper-Bristol single-seater.
Bristol refined it, producing 80bhp at 4200 rpm. Later ones gave over 130bhp at 5500 rpm for racier cars such as the Arnolt Bristol produced for the United States by 'Wacky' Arnolt through his connections with Bertone. Outright racing versions, such as the Le Mans Bristols, which ran with impressive regularity in 1953-4, gave up to 160bhp, while some Cooper-Bristols of the sort with which Mike Hawthorn established himself, gave over 170bhp, though at some expense of reliability.
Bristols 400 to 406, produced from 1946 to 1961 had a chassis built up on box-section frames which, over the years, changed in detail and underwent suspension alterations, while preserving its essential strength and safety. Bristols matured as their owners grew older - but that did not mean they became slower. Though ever more luxurious and better finished, they remained amongst the world’s fastest 4-seat cars until the 1980s.
Bristol Teardrop Special photographed at Goodwood in 2009. Based on a 1959 406, TSF 789 had a 1937 Talbot Lago lookalike body by Figoni and Falashi (who else?). Magnificent recreation in Bristol fashion. Gouette d’Eau
The curvy 400 had competent handling and light steering, giving a good account of itself in competition. It was produced alongside the 401, introduced in 1948, with fashionable Superleggera bodywork, but the handling deteriorated and the cars became less sporting, until the introduction of the most-admired Bristol ever, the 404. The smallest Bristol, on the same short 96¼in (244.5cm) wheelbase as the lightweight, rather spartan Arnolt-Bristols, the 404 was also one of the rarest. Only 40 were ever built, with an elegant 2-door body and small discreet tail fins. It evolved into the 4-door 405 with 125bhp and a better gear change, although wood-framed body restorers would later find it challenging. In 1958 the milder-mannered 406, costlier, roomier was directed towards the Bentley market.
Bristol 404. The Businessman’s Express. First Bristol to replace a BMW-style grille, with an anonymous hole. A modest 140bhp made it less of an Express at around 110mph. Still quick for 1954.
Arnolt-Bristol. Anglo-American neo-racing Bristol.
Repercussions of the De Havilland Comet accidents were felt throughout the aircraft industry. Cash had to be diverted to research and development on the aeroplane side of Bristol, causing abandonment of its car programme that held such promise. It was left bereft of a proposed twin ohc 3.65 litre replacement engine, designed by Steuart Tresilian and had to look elsewhere.
Rival engines of greater power and flexibility were leaving the 2 litre 6-cylinder behind so Bristol returned to a British tradition in the 1930s of buying American. Big, lusty power units were cheap and available, so a special version of the 5.1 litre Chrysler V8 was commissioned for the Type 407 of 1961. Automatic transmission and a relatively slow-revving engine made 407 the antithesis of its highly-tuned, high-revving predecessors. The entire character of Bristols changed. Strong acceleration and a top speed of 120mph (193.1kph) kept the high performance but now it was more in the luxury league. The 408 of 1966 was a restyled version of the same car (if styling was a word that could ever be applied to staid, upright Bristols) and had the welcome addition of ZF power steering to meet criticisms of the muscular effort required at parking speeds.
Rebodied by Touring in light alloy over a steel frame, Bristol 401 was a celebrity luxury touring saloon. GSU 758 photographed by the author at Culzean Castle, Ayrshire, features in LJK Setright’s Palawan Press Bristol A Private Car,1999.
In the end it wasn’t enough. Like Bristol owners, Bristol cars put on weight, grew fastidious, more relaxed perhaps, a touch pretentious until like a final lot of military veterans, they just died out.
The truncated Mille Miglia of 1940 secured BMW’s place in sports car history. This was a car with a continuous history. Liberated by the Aldingtons in 1945, converted into a Frazer Nash, sold to Gillie Tyrer whom I watched racing it in the 1950s, restored by Classic Cars’ Michael Bowler so I knew it again in the 1960s. Re-built by BMW Museum in the 1980s it is pictured on our Scottish tour. Chris Willows and me at Ackergill Tower, Wick in 1993. Insured then for £2million, maybe twice as much now. Priceless as an automotive artefact.