Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin H
Tony Crook ...managed to sell relatively simple cars with a cheap American power train, for huge amounts of money, and with very little in the way of chassis development between models....
I suspect Bristol was in trouble by the time Toby Silverton came along...
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I'm a bit confused about these two points Kevin. Tony Crook clearly did not use his car business to fund other vices, thus the price charged reflected the cost to build the cars plus a bit more to pay Tony a life income.
Are you saying the huge price of the car is too high (implying too much money) or too little (implying the reason you suspect his balance sheet was weak)?
In my view, Tony struck a good balance, enabling him to run a business for a lifetime in which the creditors never came to shut him down. He kept overhead low, R&D very limited, and maintained an exceptionally loyal staff. He did not need car magazine publicity, so he did not let them waste his time and spend his resources. If he sold through dealers, he would have to offer a wholesale price which probably would have meant a higher retail price. Given his micro-market that could be fed with one showroom, it would make no sense to have dealers. While you attribute this to being a great marketer, I suggest this is more the hallmark of an effective, albeit risk-aversive manager.
When one builds 100,000 chassis per year (for example, the Ford Crown Victoria), the efficiencies of scale kick in. Labour and amortised machinery proportionally drop substantially, as does the cost of steel and rubber. But even at that scale, under the skin the cars do not change that much. Model year changes are for the most part either visual or legislation dictated. To compare a bespoke car with a mass produced one leaves out too much to be useful. Without the Henry Fords of the world, all cars would be at Bristol prices.
To more fairly assess Bristol, it would be more proper to say that time operated on a different scale. Think of it like dog-years. In effect they made one car for the first half century or so, not unreasonable for a total production run in the four figures. They changed power train once, but without further R&D, and otherwise just played with the panel beating and a bit of tweaking. And since the original design performed rather well for its intended purpose (which in reality is about 15 mph over the speed limit on roads built to be safe for trucks which handle poorly), the market for it continued without the need for a new or evolving design.
We now are witnessing a new era for Bristol, as the Fighter represents a large investment in R&D, derived from outside capital that appears to have been motivated more by passion that the cold eye of the bank manager. Concurrent with this change, we are seeing the resale prices of our vintage Bristols rising, as more people become aware of the marque. Toby Silverton tells us the waiting list is now 18 months, thus his production goal of three cars per week is likely to be running at full tilt. It would be interesting to learn how much of that production is contracted out. A while back I bought a BMW-C1 where the No 2 at BMW in Munich told me that zero percent of the bike was actually made by BMW employees. He also said that even with production cars the BMW content was surprisingly small, although I no longer remember the percentage.
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As an unfair crack... you say your experience with small companies is the opposite. I trust you exclude from that the small company that had your 411 for a decade or so "restoring" it. My experience with small companies is that they are good when their business is not complex. Cars and software are extremely complex with thousands of dependencies that must work together. Thus I have a different expectation for Bristol as a company than I do for Toyota.
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And about generalisations, of course you are right. But generalisations do have their value, and it was in that spirit that I offered it.
Claude