Bristol Article in Octane June '11 issue

[lord sward]

Bristol Cars had a large feature in Top Gear Magazine way back in issue 12 (1995ish), and it was a glowing review by Quinton Wilson and a Blenheim 2 road test by Andy Wilman (now current TopGear TV show producer). CROOK is also interviewed by Wilman for the magazine. However, in the past CROOK had prevented Top Gear (the show) from having a car, although I understand that James May was looking to arrange a road test of a current vehicle for the next series before the failure of the firm. Clarkson is also said to have been refused a road test of a Blenheim 3 in the last few years for one of his newspaper columns.

Crook is also on record as saying the company had never received any help from any Government - quite the opposite in fact.

[jimfoz]

Originally Posted by lord sward

Bristol Cars had a large feature in Top Gear Magazine way back in issue 12 (1995ish), and it was a glowing review by Quinton Wilson and a Blenheim 2 road test by Andy Wilman (now current TopGear TV show producer). CROOK is also interviewed by Wilman for the magazine. However, in the past CROOK had prevented Top Gear (the show) from having a car, although I understand that James May was looking to arrange a road test of a current vehicle for the next series before the failure of the firm. Clarkson is also said to have been refused a road test of a Blenheim 3 in the last few years for one of his newspaper columns.

Crook is also on record as saying the company had never received any help from any Government - quite the opposite in fact.

TC used to get quite aggrieved if any slight criticism was made about his cars whether it was a noisy ventilation fan (the journalist hadn't used the system correctly) or the fact that the 603 didn't have any door mirrors (bad wind resistance - hmmm, right). I recall he even wrote in to C&S mag in relation to a newly restored 409 that suffered from fuel starvation (I can confirm it wasn't restored by us!).
I guess he got fed up with lending them out and correcting the testers and considered his cars above that kind of scrutiny. I imagine if I had a small concern like his I would be quite defensive over my product. Top Gear magazine were probably quite clever in that they gave sufficient praise without being too toady in order to secure future try-outs.
Surprising that Car magazine never got to test them considering the LJKS connection, but I wonder if TC still held a grudge over the slight disagreement they had over the BOC in the 70's.

[Peter Grace]

As far as marketing is concerned, communication can simply be divided between paid (advertising, web etc) and unpaid (PR). And again, the simplest view of both is that paid gives you control of the message, and unpaid very little control at all.

A quick look at the old website (in Tony Crook's time) showed little regard for the quality of the paid message. The website, like the showroom, was amateur. There was virtually no advertising attempted, no sponsorship aside from Le Mans, much earlier, in the mid-50s. The little money Bristol spent on controlling the message, they spent badly.

I think it has been argued many times that Bristol, under Crook's stewardship, had masterly control over myth-making. This is the unpaid area of communications.

Yet for much of that, Bristol has Setright to thank. Certainly Tony Crook added some wonderful anecdotes that added to Bristol's image as an eccentric choice. But I am not sure he did much to give the engineering credibility. It was Setright's journalism that helped the marque shine. There are plenty of other examples of journalists who were mostly uncritical of the cars, Martin Buckley's tribute in his Encyclopedia of Classic Cars was one of them.

I am just not so sure Mr Crook and perhaps even Mr Silverton ever understood the subtleties of controlling the message. For Mr Crook, the message was something chaotic and out of control, something he didn't like dealing with and maybe even feared.

I would have recommended Top Gear didn't test the car on tv. The show is deliberately chaotic and you would never know what they would poke fun at. But I would have pushed Bristol to find a 'friendly' journalist, someone perhaps that could understand the technology vs bespoke argument, and someone Bristol could work with to address any quality problems and overcome them. Too often Bristol abdicated any chances of control over the message, or in Mr Crook's case, made the story not about the car itself, but why the manufacturer didn't give access to the car. In any other industry, and probably in this one too, that's just plain suicide.

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted by Peter Grace

There are plenty of other examples of journalists who were mostly uncritical of the cars, Martin Buckley's tribute in his Encyclopedia of Classic Cars was one of them.

I am just not so sure Mr Crook and perhaps even Mr Silverton ever understood the subtleties of controlling the message.

Maybe that's why TS took an ill humoured swipe at Buckley in a letter to Classic & Thoroughbred Cars back in 2000. Buckley's article and TS response can be found here .
.

[lord sward]

I've only known Steve Cropely ever be allowed a full road test of a Blenheim. Aside from the one-off that was Wilman.

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted by Peter Grace

As far as marketing is concerned, communication can simply be divided between paid (advertising, web etc) and unpaid (PR). And again, the simplest view of both is that paid gives you control of the message, and unpaid very little control at all.

Here's a good example of the latter. This dreadful review is what can happen when you shun the media. Eventually they get hold of an example that you have no control over and as one of the article comments says, it might the worst example out there.

Crook clearly had the opportunity to avoid this. He had the opportunity to supply a known good car which wouldn't come with the horror stories of the owner, who had presumably bought a secondhand lemon.

Thanks to the internet and the lack of alternative articles, the bad review remains near the top of the Google search results 6 years later! The best way to counter this is to drown it out/bury it with more positive reviews and some smart SEO. It would take months to achieve, but it can be done. You would of course need to have your cars test driven in order to achieve this.

Didn't Bristol engage a PR firm a couple of years ago....

[Peter Grace]

I personally thought the new website was just a tarting up of the original. There was not the level of investment that would begin to pit Bristol against a brand like Aston, for instance. There is a charming blog, which you would have thought Bristol particularly suitable for, Once Was England, and he won't post a story about them, citing a lack of any decent photography. It's true, I think, that no-one has ever taken a beautiful studio shot of a Bristol, and that speaks volumes. Not even the manufacturer has invested in a hero shot of their cars.

Putting the website into the hands of a PR company would not normally be the route you would take if you expected a stunning result. Some PR companies work really well with designers, but I don't think in this case a great job was done. PR people are wordsmiths, they don't usually excel in pictures. A case in point is the photo of the Fighter on the website. Why would you put it in front of an ugly old Victorian warehouse? This, to me, demonstrates a total lack of care, not understatement.

Another interesting blog, Made by Hand- the great Sartorial Debate, aimed mostly at tailors, makes an interesting point (somewhere in one of his articles) about technology vs bespoke. If you go and have a suit made at a Savile Row tailor, you are paying for something made largely by hand. Yes, they do have machines, and they do use them. But a Savile Row tailor, who makes so few suits a year, cannot afford some of the high tech sewing equipment that a big manufacturer like Canali can, making thousands of suits a year. So the process is not only slower, it's also flawed. The new machines are more precise and more 'perfect' in their results than any hand-stitched buttonhole or lapel can ever be. The Savile Row tailor, even the very best of them, can easily be criticised for bad sewing, taking shortcuts, or adopting new ideas in suit-making that don't work. This blog takes apart suits worth thousands of dollars, from very famous tailors, and often finds them wanting.

The artisans who make persian rugs often put a deliberate mistake in the weave. Because "only Allah is perfect".

That is the difference between bespoke and technology. So long as a Bristol is safe to drive, and so long as the manufacturer is prepared to iron out the bugs when an owner requests it, and so long as there are not too many faults with a new car (that the quality is evident), I can't see why you can't promote handmade with natural flaws over machine-made, perfect and without a soul.

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted by Peter Grace

I can't see why you can't promote handmade with natural flaws over machine-made, perfect and without a soul.

You can, but they don't.

I remember when TVR launched the new Tuscan Speed Six. On their web site they provided an enormous amount of information about the car, including a detailed story of how the car was developed and built, even down to the detail of the aluminium switch knobs and LED lights that they made themselves. The site was really well done, with nice photography and was a great example of using the web to create a valuable promotional tool. It's gone now of course, along with the company.

[Markus Berzborn]

The whole point about hand made suits and cars is not so much quality, it is perfect fit.
With mass-produced clothes and cars you choose from a pre-manufactured range and pick the product which suits you best. As opposed to this, bespoke products are made to fit the individual customer from the beginning on.
So this aspect should be stressed in marketing texts, rather than the quality of manual work.

Regards,
Markus