Bristol alternatives.

[browning l]

Originally Posted by Kevin Howard

No I did mean the chassis. Just thought I would throw that one out there and see what the reaction was

We all know the engine is a Viper engine, and presumably the transmission, but I assumed that Bristol made the chassis.

However, just last week I was talking to a guy who recently visited Chrysler in Detroit. He is doing some development work on another model of car to utilise the Viper engine so he had some meetings arranged with Chrysler people. They looked after him, picked him up from his hotel, took him out for lunch and gave him a tour of the Viper production plant. These guys were very forthcoming with information until he asked if the Bristol Fighter used the Viper chassis - "No comment" was the response.

Now if Bristol were not using the Viper chassis it would be very simple for the Chrysler guys to say that. But when anyone declines to comment when asked a simple yes/no question, that makes me suspicious.

Why would Bristol not use the Viper chassis? It's a great chassis, well proven and successful in racing versions of the Viper. It would also have saved them a fortune in development costs.

Has anyone ever seen a reasonably detailed description of the Fighter chassis?

Your assumption was correct, but then you stop doing justice to Bristol's aircraft-derived engineering practices. A simple inquiry of Bristol Cars LTD elicited the facts that there is no secret about the Fighter chassis; The car has been shown in chassis form both at shows and in the showroom. The two chassis are completely dissimilar.