Bristol Fighter: Spotted
The Fighter was Bristol's take on a supercar. It was as esoteric as that sounds
Personally, I always fancied the Brigand version - mostly for the outrageous brilliance of its name and the Scirocco headlights, and a little bit for the thought of the Rotomeister turbo which Bristol had strapped to its favoured Chrysler V8. Today though we're focusing on the firm's final folly - the Fighter. Considering the manufacturer's penchant for self-referential aircraft names, the label says much of what you need to know about the model. This was a new Bristol, then marshalled by Toby Silverton, in its most thrusting guise.
The presence of the Viper's massive 8.0-litre V10 hadn't made the Fighter oversized though: it was 115mm narrower than the donor car, ridiculously close to the ground and boasted a 0.28 coefficient drag factor. It was also said to weigh 1540kg, which isn't much at all when there's 532hp powering it (or 637hp if you bought it in 'S' format). The standard model would have you to 60mph in 4 seconds via a manual six-speed gearbox - only needing a single ratio to get there.
Sadly, too few owners ever got to test that potential; despite technically being in production for seven years until Bristol halted production in 2011, it's quite possible that there were only ever 13 cars to choose from. That makes the re-emergence of one of them in the classifieds an event worth celebrating - especially when said example is resplendent in Baltic Blue Metallic and Cognac leather and is said to be the first factory demonstrator. After a decade on the continent and with 17k on the clock, it's now being offered in the UK for around £30k less than its original asking price. One for the connoisseur, our advertiser suggests. And how.
SPECIFICATION - BRISTOL FIGHTER
Engine: 7,990cc, V10
Transmission: six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 532@5,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 525@4,200rpm
MPG: N/A
CO2: N/A
First registered: 2004
Recorded mileage: 17,000 miles
Price new: £229,000
Price now: £199,950
See the original advert here
http://www.shuttleworth.org/collection/bristolf2b/
I'll leave the discussion into relative modernity to others.
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