The Bristoliste’s Bristol? The 411 turns 50.
The Bristol Motor car, from its 1948 inception has always proven to be a rarefied and somewhat piquant recipe. Because for every individual who admires and covets the earthbound products of Filton, there are those who find them ungainly, crude and overpriced. But even amongst the former group, there are Bristols and there are Bristols.
Like so many articles of faith, aficionados of the marque tend to Continue reading “Summer Reissue : Peak Bristol”
A nice pair of Bristols? We go in search of shutline nirvana – by air and by road.
Earlier in the week, we spent a fair amount of time examining shutlines and the lengths to which some carmakers will go to engineer solutions to the issues left by the stylists, not to mention the depths to which the marketing team will descend to cast them in the best possible light.
So it is perhaps timely that we Continue reading “Summer Reissue : Another Country”
We trace a direct descendant.
In 1922, against great opposition from his board, Herbert Austin introduced his Seven into a market dominated by the rudimentary cyclecars that had sprung up in the wake of the First World War. The Seven was a proper small car and, unlike other ‘people’s cars’, it had no radical and untried solutions.
It used a small 4 cylinder, front mounted engine, taking drive through a clutch and gearbox to a rear axle. The solid axle was suspended on elliptic springs but, because everything was so light, the springs did not need to Continue reading “Theme : Evolution – Or Metamorphosis?”
Driven To Write 