RE: Bristol Fighter: Spotted

RE: Bristol Fighter: Spotted

Author
Discussion

blearyeyedboy

6,252 posts

178 months

Saturday 24th February 2018
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NomduJour said:
“Build quality!” “Build quality!”

Tiny budget, ambitious aims; nine cars built.

Don’t like it? Buy something else*



* moan about something else on the internet
Tony, is that you? hehe

Edited by blearyeyedboy on Saturday 24th February 11:26

andy_s

19,397 posts

258 months

Saturday 24th February 2018
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I'd love one, but no idea why.

irish boy

3,523 posts

235 months

Saturday 24th February 2018
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andy_s said:
I'd love one, but no idea why.
Me too. Every Bristol thread goes the same. There is one or two owners on here too, they post up sometimes saying they are a good everyday car which are enjoyable to own. They then get completely ignored, and a pile more dribble comes out from people who have never even sat in one.

Sway

26,070 posts

193 months

Saturday 24th February 2018
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jonny142 said:
I spent an hour or so on a Sunday chasing a bloody Pigeon back and forth in the factory at Patchway that was causing the alarm to activate back in the mid 90.'s . 1st time i'd seen a Viper in the flesh that was there in the factory , lots of various older stuff being worked on/ being restored .. rumour from other people i worked with said the test chap who was in his 70's/80's back then got up in the early hours and test drove each new car up the M5 well over the speed limit for a shakedown test , The main office was like going back to the 50's with old wood panels walls/tall filing cabinets /desks/chairs ..
I think this is the salient point - they were a very high end 1950s British car firm, designing and building cars in the 90s.

As such, they're bloody superb - if admittedly deserving of pretty much every criticism thrown at them.

Morgan passed on to younger generations of engineers and designers, Bristol didn't. Rumour (and yes, I'm well aware that there's a lot of rumour/bullst surrounding Bristol, TC actively encouraged it) has it that the Fighter was drafted, and various bits were calculated using slide rules...

The key engineers were though, all aircraft engineers 'by trade'. As such, pretty bloody knowledgeable about weight distribution/aero/etc.

I'd buy one in a bloody heartbeat, and spend enough to make it build as well as it deserves. What's not to like about excellent visibility, minimal weight, great luggage capacity, comfort and five hundred v10 horsepower?

BigMon

4,155 posts

128 months

Saturday 24th February 2018
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I can, I think, understand the appeal but to me it does look like a kit car.

It might look good on the outside, but that interior is horrific.

I like quirky things, but for £200000 there are many, many other cars that would come before this.

Olivera

7,065 posts

238 months

Saturday 24th February 2018
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BigMon said:
It might look good on the outside, but that interior is horrific.
Yes. For 200k I'd expect better than bakelite grade plastics, 20 year old Ford parts bin switchgear, flat formless seats, exposed screwheads and a dash centre console that resembles a 1980s Dixons high-fi.

oilburner

21 posts

224 months

Sunday 25th February 2018
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SJMW said:
Parts bin special. Build quality shocking. I know of an owner who had to have the rear window glass ground down at Bristol til it fitted properly. Doors leaked. Company lied about production numbers. So many nicer cars for that money
It was anything but a parts bin special. That was part of it's problem. Apart from the drive train everything was bespoke, even the HVAC unit was designed from scratch because there was nothing available that functioned the way they wanted it to.

oilburner

21 posts

224 months

Sunday 25th February 2018
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gigglebug said:
Was going to be an S version as well which fitted inbetween the standard car and the T. The styling of the T improved the looks for me.


This is the original design intent not a re-style for the S or T. The picture is a retouched image of the original 1/3 scale model taken near Kenwood House!

dapprman

2,309 posts

266 months

Sunday 25th February 2018
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I remember when they were taking pre-orders at Goodwood - there was a massive thread on the car here - very divisive. The one thing I do remember was two or three people arguing for pages about the interior as one thought it was well made, another thought it was shoddy. Consensus at the time was a beautiful looking car seriously over priced (think people felt £50-80K was about the right level at the time, not 230k), poorly made, and with the reputation of Bristol meaning you never quite knew what you'd have bought and the way you were treated depended on how the Bristol owner liked you.

SVX

2,182 posts

210 months

Monday 26th February 2018
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I'd have one in a heartbeat; as mentioned by other posters, the Bristol marque is somewhat divisive - but I've always been a fan. One of these and a 456M GTA in TdF blue would go into my lottery win stable.

gigglebug

2,611 posts

121 months

Monday 26th February 2018
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oilburner said:
gigglebug said:
Was going to be an S version as well which fitted inbetween the standard car and the T. The styling of the T improved the looks for me.


This is the original design intent not a re-style for the S or T. The picture is a retouched image of the original 1/3 scale model taken near Kenwood House!
Ah, I see. Thanks for the info. It definitely looked better with this styling, not that I have anything against how it actually looked.

blearyeyedboy

6,252 posts

178 months

Monday 26th February 2018
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While I've been one of the harshest critics of Bristol on this thread, styling was not one of its problems. It looked like nothing else on the road, and form filled function and aerospace heritage. I think the exterior looked- and still looks- fabulous.