New 403 owner

[Claude]

Originally Posted by Hal

However, if Bristol gave up making their own engines, and bought in engines from Chrysler, does that mean that the engine and gearbox are not fundamental to the spirit or soul of a Bristol.
Hal

Rules about classic cars do not apply to Bristol. There are not enough of them to create a "typical" resale market, and a great deal of their fate depends on one man... previously Tony and now Toby. Tony caused the marque to fall into oblivion, keeping it going but putting it so far off the radar screen as to weaken the used market to the point where many restorables were scrapped or lie in open fields. Toby has revitalized it, so there is new interest, and I see prices higher.

The soul of a Bristol is not purest. It is an engineers car (until the recent Fighter which is sex on wheels) and a historian's car in the same vein as the Morgan, only more elegant. So when Chrysler offered their automatic transmission, and popped a motor on it to demonstrate its use, Bristol shifted to what they saw as an excellent motor. Once in, they have stayed with it because changing is complicated, and their engine has remained stable even as the company changed ownership and almost went out of business a few times.

Bristol itself does not venerate its cars. It is happy to take a 410 in and offer to refit it with the latest engine, brakes, electric devices and modern sunroof. But because it does this as the factory, it creates an official sanction that goes down in history as proper. It makes it part of the"soul" of the car.

Sometimes it takes a newcomer, and Hal, you may be the man. Not sure where you live, but I would suggest you take a flight or drive over to the showroom and have a serious chat with Toby. I would estimate there are at least a hundred engineless 400-6 cars out there that could reasonably be restored if an engine/transmission combo could affordably be secured from a donor car. The business case for Bristol is the Morgan business case. As Tony Crook said, Morgan is in the parts business. They build their cars to create market demand for parts. Put a hundred Bristols back on the road with engines and the demand for restoration parts will skyrocket.

I think it is worthwhile asking Toby to look at electric. Doing a review of the internet shows companies are now coming out with reasonable sized cars targeting 100 to 250 miles driving range. Batteries will improve. We may also see fuel cell charging systems that use gasoline better (because they run at a single rpm). From a restoration perspective, electric is easy because it fits in the engine bay and allows weight to be strategically distributed for best handling. If he can do the conversion at the current market price, they would charge about 10,000 UKP... and as all would be the same, that price could come down after the first few. Not unprecedented. When gas became a problem, Bristol sold LPG cars. And, on my last visit to the repair shop, they did have an electric micro car parked in a corner.

But if not electric, ask Toby to pick a common engine that was put in cars whose bodies broke while the engine soldiered on. It is too bad, of course that the Chrysler small-block 8 does not easily fit, but I wonder what would be involved in a factory refit kit. It may require a tin kit for the engine bay, and probably would require a stronger differential. After all they did it with the Bullet, which looks like it was a Bristol-6 chassis they modified as an engine test bed.

What do you say, Hal? Pop on over and have a chat.

Claude