page_title: Bristol Cars
section_title: Pre-war BMW designs, Aldington brothers and early cars
hierarchical_section_title: Bristol Cars / Pre-war BMW designs, Aldington brothers and early cars
caption_attribution_description: English: Bristol 400 at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.
context_page_description: Bristol Cars was a manufacturer of hand-built luxury cars headquartered in Bristol, England. They entered liquidation in May 2020, having been previously in liquidation and taken over in 2011.
  After the Second World War, the Car Division of the Bristol Aeroplane Company was formed, later becoming Bristol Cars Limited.
  Bristol had only one sales showroom, on the corner of Kensington High Street and Holland Road in London.
  Bristol had always been a low-volume manufacturer; the most recent published official production figures were for 1982, which stated that 104 cars were produced in that year.
  The company suspended manufacturing in March 2011, when administrators were appointed, 22 staff were made redundant at the factory in Filton, Bristol and subsequently the company was dissolved. In April 2011, a new company was formed by the administrator to sell the original assets to Kamkorp. Since 2011, the company has been restoring and selling all models of the marque while a new model was being developed. The company had revealed a desire to return to automotive production in 2018 with an all-new model, called the "Bullet", initially dubbed "Project Pinnacle".
context_section_description: HJ Aldington, a director of the Bristol Aeroplane Company affiliated AFN (BMW's pre-war concessionaire in the UK), used his British Army connections to visit the bombed BMW factory in Munich several times post-war. In 1945 he took plans for BMW cars back to Britain, and BMW chief engineer, Dr. Fritz Fiedler was also employed. Its first car was the Bristol 400, prototyped in 1946 and introduced at the 1947 Geneva Motor Show. Derived from immediately pre-WW2 BMW products (thanks to a connection to BMW through Frazer Nash), the chassis was based on the BMW 326, the engine on the 328, and the body on the 327. Even a variation on the famous double-kidney BMW grille was retained. Bristol, however, did a thorough examination of the car's handling and ended up with performance "only matched by outright purpose-built competition cars". Seven hundred of the Bristol 400 were built, 17 of which received "handsome" drophead bodywork from Pininfarina.
  In 1949, the 400 was joined by the five-place 401. Bodied by Touring, it was aerodynamically sleeker, accelerated better, and had higher top speed. It was joined by the drophead 402, of which just 24 examples were built.
  The 403 followed in 1953, which featured improved brakes, gearbox, dampers, heater, and engine (a detuned racing motor, in fact). Bristol would use this same engine in the 450, entered at Le Mans in 1953; it broke its experimental crankshaft, but despite being less than aerodynamically ideal proved fully five seconds a lap quicker than the competition. Bristol withdrew from racing two years later.
  Along with the 403 was the 404, on a shorter wheelbase, with a more powerful engine and styling reminiscent of the 450. The 404 introduced a concealed front wing-mounted spare wheel and battery. It was built to extremely exacting standards, and the price reflected it; this, plus newly introduced "punitive taxation", meant only 40 were produced.
  The 405, which entered production in 1954, was much more successful, not least for being Bristol's only four-door. It remained in production until 1958, with 297 saloons and 43 drophead coupés produced in all.
  Bristol debuted the 406 in 1958, and it remained in production until 1961.
caption: Bristol 400, 1946–50
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