New 403 owner

[Bellerophon]

The question how did the members of the BMW Car Club view the Bristol
owners.
Well I entered the first Bristol concourse held with the BMW club at Esher
in 1965, The event was split into two sections, the Bristol half was run as
one class for all models of Bristol cars, being just a first second and
third ect. I had fitted my car with Cintura radial tyres (one of the first in
the country) the judges did not like this as it was not in the original
specification so marked my wheels and tyres down. Dispite this the car came
fourth overall the winner being Lt.Col. G.T.E.Grey with his 406Z ,of
interest was L.J.K.Setright's 405 which came seventh.
We ventured onto the BMW section and were very taken with the very good
looking type 507 sports car with the V8 engine however this was only LHD, the
general feeling among the people present was that it was great to have an
enlarged club with much more of interest to look at. (no them and us at all)
In those days the Bristol News appeared in the BMW magazine and if you look
on the CD the club issued covering the magazines you can see how the two
makes were run side by side.
Hope this gives you some idea of how it was at the start, it was only when
the number of Bristol owners grew that a parting of the ways took place.
Bristol Cars always had a special place being manufactured by the Great
Bristol Aeroplane Company similar to Rolls Royce it stood for something which
I do not think can be quite matched now.
My regards,
Bellerophon

[Des]

The Swedish 405 with BMW engine is interesting, I've no idea of exact measurements but I suspect a modern BMW 6 may need some vaseline to squeeze into a Brizzy 6 engine bay. Would be interesting to visit a scrapyard with a measuring tape in hand.
I think maybe the path of engine change can be done two ways, easy / simple, (which may become difficult) or complicated / involved (which will become near impossible).
For me, easy would be finding an engine gearbox combo which can fit in the available space, with the minimum of adaption / mutilation of the car, with self contained ignition in the form of distributor and a carburetor.
Difficult would be using any engine produced in the last decade or so, which will invariably involve a whole world of pain in the form of electronic control, there are various ways of doing this, but all are complex and mean a lot more to go wrong.
I'll have to begin carrying a tape measure at all times, and see if I come across something tasty, the Japanese have made some quite nice motors, and If there's one with the ideal dimensions I suppose it would have to be considered, the rotary Mazda Wankel thing would take up little space, equally different would be the Subaru boxer. At the moment a large amount of cars have been taken off the road via the scrappage scheme, there have been many stories of excellent cars, some low mileage one owner, condemned in the belief that a nasty Korean thing is better. There are yards such as U-Pull-It with cars lined up for stripping before crushing. I'm thinking it could be tempting to put my cars original engine / box to one side, and possibly have something more powerful that I won't be scared to thrash.

[Hal]

Originally Posted by Bellerophon

The question how did the members of the BMW Car Club view the Bristol owners.

Well I entered the first Bristol concourse held with the BMW club at Esher
in 1965, The event was split into two sections, the Bristol half was run as
one class for all models of Bristol cars, being just a first second and
third ect.

Well i guess if they shared a club, then its seems fairly clear that both BMW and Bristol owners at that time, accepted the shared ancestory.

If this is the case, then perhaps the case for judicious use of BMW parts is stronger, and doesn't dilute the character / heritage etc.

Regards Hal