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Old 30-03-11, 10:22 AM
The Baron The Baron is offline
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I believe the price of the Fighter does matter Markus. There aren't enough cash addled billionaires out there to keep many car companies running in a sustainable manner for long, this market is ultimately novelty driven and requires regular (and expensive) model updates/reworkings to pander to a jaded palette. Aston will be OK for a while on the back of the massive investment by Ford, Bristol were in much the same position in the years immediately after the exit of BAC and look how long they limped on for. Whether the current Aston shareholders are in it for the long haul remains to be seen.
More relevent is the fact that the Bristol marque doesn't have the kind of glamourous, jet set image beloved by new money types, quite the opposite in fact. As a rich persons plaything, any company, even Manchester City FC, can survive provided the owners cash cows keep supplying. I strongly suspect that is the business model for many small volume hypercar producers. Aston have a modern, modular range of bread and butter volume produced cars which sell at prices affordable by the large numbers of the global moderately wealthy. I imagine their top of the range hypercars are produced partly to maintain the company's glamour rating and thus their brand value which is then exploited elsewhere within the company.
Now the situation at Bristol can be changed, but it will take time and a prodigious cash burn to do so with little guarantee of success. I personally believe Mr Silverton didn't do a lot wrong really, he attempted to steer a progressive course within the limitations of his finances, making use of the skill set available within the company. Even so he failed, and he had a solid background in specialist car production. That is a sobering fact indeed.

Anyway, despite it seems ruling myself out for the post as new Bristol Cars MD, I really do wish them the very best of luck in their future plans. All we can do is speculate as to what that future may hold, delivering a future is thankfully, someone else's bag.
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