Bristol Six-Cylinder Cars by Christopher Balfour
The Society of Automobile Historians in Britain asked me to talk about these cars at their Annual Meeting in Bromsgrove in October. Ann and I decided to try and get hold of the large models of the potential 'World Car.' (see book page 69). The Bristol Heritage Trust kindly agreed and we duly connected from Clifton. The models were placed on a large table in front of the audience, none of whom had previously seen an image of the car except in the book.
After talking about the earlier models, 400 to 406, I explained how I thought that, if there had not been all the problems in the Aircraft Industry, examples of this larger British 3.65 litre six-cylinder car with Moulton 'Flexitor' rubber suspension could have been in the parking spaces now occupied by Audi, BMW, Mercedes, etc.
When I sat down around 50 or 60 in the audience brandished their cameras and rushed to take pictures of the models from every angle. So now this imagined British masterpiece will be a little bit better known to the World. And the chassis (with rough bodywork) really did exist and completed over 70,000 miles on test. Another pleasure of the day was that the present Owner brought our first Bristol '400' which we had purchased for £370 in 1961. We subsequently learnt that the car had been built in 1947 for Sir William Verdon-Smith then Chairman of Bristol Aeroplane. He left the car in his Will to his Doctor and then it came to us. As our family grew we needed a bigger car. After various adventures it was bought by Maximilien.
Bristol Six-Cylinder Cars by Christopher Balfour is available for purchase now.