The aluminum-bodied Bristol 403 is an example of vintage luxury model that incorporated both design and engineering philosophies that are still at play today. Light-weight construction, wind-cheating aero, and powerful drivetrains are all basic ingredients when designing a luxury model, and the Bristol 403 incorporated all of them into a striking package. This is a rare left hand drive model offered here on the Dave Olimpi Automobiles website for $49,500.
The 403 remains one of the most polarizing designs to ever come out of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, or more simply, Bristol Cars. When you spot one of these in the wild, most car enthusiasts would waste little time identifying it as a Bristol, what with that dramatic rear end treatment and narrow back window. This car appears to have beautiful paint, near-perfect chrome bumpers, and all the small details correct, like the polished hubcaps and functional pop-out rear windows.
And that interior – well, there aren’t many cars with a dashboard configuration like this. The design of the gauges is a cross between automotive and aeronautical, and the wood fascia makes for a stunning backdrop. The 403 models represented a significant leap forward in terms of performance, with a BMW-derived inline-six making 100 horsepower that was good for a 0-60 time of just over 13 seconds and a top speed of over 100 miles per hour – truly impressive for a large luxury model with seating for four.
The 403 as shown here is said to drive quite well, with the selling broker noting that the car drives straight and true, and tracks perfectly at highway speeds. The photos of the interior leave you wondering if it’s been restored or simply lovingly preserved, as it walks the line nicely between either possibility. The listing also notes the Bristol will come with extensive documentation going all the way back to the first U.S. owner’s correspondence with the Bristol factory – a bonus for the next owner of this beautiful 403.
Mahvelous, simply mahvahvelous. Although,,I might not be the only one wondering how a BMW motor got into a high end British sedan so soon after the war. Well, I did. Apparently, Bristol acquired the rights for pre-war BMW motors and chassis’ as war reparations. I believe the trademark BMW type grill was from their buddies, the Italians who designed the car. (feel free to correct) The result was this fabulous car. A bit heavy on the “Axis” powers, but just shows to go ya’, the Brits put that behind them, kind of. More accurately, British engineers weren’t stupid and knew full well the mechanical knowledge of both, and probably capitalized on that,,for a while anyway. Beautiful car.
Thank you, Howard-you answered the first question many of us would ask when looking at the grill and engine, and make us go searching for more info.
Interesting that a chance meet in France between Wilbur Wright and an English railroad Baron (George White) would produce landmark cars as well as aircraft, surviving to this day as BAE Systems.
Looking at the car it’s no wonder their car making got bought Siddley then later Rolls Royce-just sitting there it looks like it’s going 100MPH.
Great pick, Jeff.
If one were to floor this would that be considered The Bristol Stomp???
No, but for that comment you must sit in the back seat for the remainder of the trip.
Fell of my chair laughing about the Btistol Stomp comment. I don’t get out much
grrroan!
Arrrgh….you just HAD to do it, didn’t you
You are sharp as a pistol!
Plain gorgeous! 3, 4 or 5 speeds forward? Can’t find where it’s located?
4 on the floor.
What the seller doesn’t tell you is that to qualify to own a Bristol, you must first correctly translate an entire page of L.J.K. Setright’s writing. Seriously, though, this is a Distinctive Car, rarely seen for sale, especially in this condition. The engine is a well-known design and not uncommon (AC Bristol, etc.). At this price, the car is a bargain and would be worth far more in England. Had I not recently bought another car, I’d definitely be all over this.
Jonny Smith had a good episode on one that had been sitting in a shed in the UK for awhile.
https://youtu.be/1-t0mmdyQ3M?si=U719EXaShKTE3TJ3
The YouTube creator “The Bearded Explorer” did a story on a very large Bristol collection, you can search his channel for the segment on the Bristol Collection. If you like to see rare Bristols, you should watch it.
Agree with all the above . This is outstanding. To push the AXIS theme a little further, Bristol commissioned two coachbuilt cars from Touring which the compnany leaned on heavily to create the in-house 401&403 models.
The expertise Bristol added wad aerodynamics so these cars show exquisite detailing of airfloe on close inspection.
Good value for the right buyer, not to every taste.
Martin, I agree this is a great price, especially for a LHD version — so rare! Had this been a RHD Bristol 403, I suspect at this price it would already be on the boat to GB. This jut may be one of those rare instances where a RHD Brit car in America might be more valuable than a LHD version.
In the 1980s I was looking for cars to buy and ship home to the USA, and seriously considered a similar 403, but ended up buying a ’58 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I. I had the 403 out on the M-3 at high speed, and it drove wonderfully, nice and solid feel, plenty of power.
Earlier this year, a very comprehensive Bristol car collection with a huge parts inventory, came up for sale in England, and the market is kinda saturated with quite a few rare Bristols, even a drophead or 2.
thought it was the Alfa 1st (same era, wuz it arillio? or 6C2500?). Something like that, but no this 1 has the 2 nostril like grills. This I understand to be one of Brittions most durble build. No grage space, would B a joy to own/drive. Y these never got more attentuion isa wonder~
Correct, Touring had done very similar bodies on Alfas previously which raised Bristol´s awareness of the Touring style and method of construction to the point where they commisioned a couple of Touring prototypes. The 401 followed the Touring model very closely, but Bristol brought its own ideas to the party as well.
Both Setright and Jay Leno talk very highly of these Bristol 403. I can’t afford one, but I do admire them.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=chwo8gW8BuM
Chris seems to be miraculous fu’…
Lovely car, agreed. The Bristol showroom used to be at the end of the A4 as it came down to Earl’s Court; don’t know if it’s still there.
The “war reparations” comment has been floating about in books and magazines for decades but is an incorrect assumption.. As I mentioned some months ago in another posting, as the war was ending BMW GAVE the engine blueprints to its pre-war British partner Frazer-Nash. When American troops arrived at their first BMW’s factory, they quickly started destroying all tooling, machinery and blueprints they could find. Someone at that factory phoned on the quiet the BMW 328 and 327 factory that was next along the way. A 1940 BMW 328 containing the Fiedler overhead valve gear motor blueprints, was quickly hidden in a nearby haystack. Within a few weeks the sports car and the design drawings were driven to the British occupation zone. They were handed over to Frazer-Nash as a sign of goodwill heading into the post-war world. The small English company which before the war had partnered with BMW to assemble and sell 328 sportscars in Britain, lacked the resources to put an engine–especially such a complex one requiring exotic metals–into production, hence sold the engine to the Bristol Aeroplane Company, which was looking into going into automotive production to make up for wartime aircraft contracts that had dried up overnight.
Good stuff, Laurence. Thank you.
Thank you Nevadahalftrack and Howard A for your politeness.
Thank you Laurence, see? I may be full of it, but my half-baked comments gets the people talking, my unofficial purpose here, I suppose. While I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, you must admit, I tap into some sharp people that know way more than I do. I shudder to think what the “Barn Finds” of the future will be like with all of us pushing daisies? I all but guarantee, nobody will know, or care about pre-war BMWs or post-war Bristols, so I’m enjoying it now. Thanks again to all that add their expertise.
My friend Howard A,
While we may in the future find fewer & fewer people interested in vehicles 60 years and older, the people to blame for this lack of interest can be laid in part to our own generation.
When I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, my dad and my best friend’s dad took us to antique car shows, and took time to teach us about the older [1920s and earlier] vehicles. Every year our secondary and high schools arranged for antique car shows on school grounds, something that is extremely rare today.
If the current adult generations don’t make the effort to teach young people about old cars & trucks, they never learn and hence they have no interest. I have 2 “thirty somethings” in my family, both girls, who have a serious interest in old cars because I have made an effort to introduce them to the world of old cars, and they will tell me about a car they saw [often correctly identifying it by make, model & year!] When we go to car shows, be it a local one or a National Club meet, It’s often me telling them It’s time to go because I’m getting tired.
I’ve always touted the concept: Take a kid to a car show.
AFN Ltd gained the exclusive rights to distribution of BMW cars in UK in 1935-6, at which point the company more or less stopped producing their proprietary Frazer Nash sports cars in order to sell BMW 327 and 328 models (and other models) in the UK as Frazer Nash-BMWs. So AFN had bet the farm on the German cars. AFN was also set to become distributors for Messerscmitt commercial aircraft as late as June 1939. Of course UK declaring war on Germany in early September 1939 meant the suspension of any of these links and this close relationship with Germany didn´t help AFN pick up lucrative wartime engineering work. It survived the war as a training organisation.
After the war ended, AFN teamed up with Bristol Aeroplane Company hoping to produce cars based on their pre-war model. Both companies had pre-war connections with BMW, but AFN more so. Being “The car guys” AFN were the first to visit Munich post-war. The BMW managers responded very positively to the extent of handing over one of the prototype racers from the 1940 Mille Miglia (falsely described as a BMW 328) whiich AFN took back to UK.
In the face of an official order by the US Military Government in October 1945 to dismantle the BMW factories and ship the contents out, AFN made a second visit to Munich. Again with active participation of BMW management, more BMW prize technology was flown back to the UK. The order from the US Military Government was downgraded for reasons unknown, but the point is that this is a lot more complex than jolly japes hiding a car in a haystack and making a few calls.There was definitely an element of war reparation, documented and real in the actions of the US Military Goverment. The British side of things seems more like “war booty” as it was not apparently achieved via official channels. The whole story in much greater detail is described by Denis Jenkinson in his history of AFN Ltd.
Conflicting vision of how to proceed with the joint venture resulted in a Bristol/AFN demerger in 1947, by which time Bristol had its 400 ready to market and probably didn´t need AFN. AFN went on to become the sole Porsche importer for UK; so ended up making more money than Bristol Cars ever did.
It would appear, Mr. Horrocks, that some of your Denis Jenkinson (whom I met many years ago) information is at odds with that of Doug Blain. He wrote an extensive article called “Frazer-Nash and the Brothers Aldington” for Road & Track in the January 1965 issue (pgs. 59-66).
My memory of that article wasn’t wrong, despite not having read it in forty years. The 1940 “haystack” car I mentioned most certainly existed and was indeed a 328, but it had been rebodied in 1939 to be more aerodynamic, so as to participate in the following year’s Mille Miglia. Thus, it does not seem to be “falsely described as a BMW 328”. The post-war Jaguar XK-120 resembled it. H.J. Aldington of AFN (Frazer-Nash) actually drove that car before the war in a race outside of Hamburg–all part of his close pre-war partnership with BMW– and wrecked it badly. The damaged car was sent to Munich’s BMW factory where it was rebuilt. On August 31, 1939, the day before Poland was invaded, the Munich factory boss phoned the AFN Aldington brothers long-distance, to tell them the car was like new again and that he would keep it for them. The car was indeed eventually hidden in a haystack along with Fritz Fiedler’s engine blueprints, as I wrote above. The car was also driven to the British Occupation Sector and handed over to the Aldington brothers, who had flown in to collect it. As a matter of added interest, the engine’s designer–Dr. Fritz Fiedler–had been put under arrest by the Americans over alleged war crimes of an undisclosed nature (most probably use of slave labour…but this is only my guess). When eventually released a couple of years later, he went to England to work for the Bristol Aeroplane Company. He was involved in the transformation of the iron cylinder head to aluminium (alloy had been reserved exclusively for the aircraft industry in pre-war Germany). He got to oversee the full development of his design and the increasing amounts of power it could produce, as higher-octane fuels became available.
I like Jay Leno’s assessment of the BMW/Bristol motor: “A two litre that thinks it is a 3.5”.
About 40 years ago a colleague of mine wanted to swop his Bristol 401 for my 1969 BMW 2002 Roundie. I was very keen but my wife didn’t like the back end very much so the deal didn’t happen. You know the story, Happy wife, happy life, however, although the 2002 is my favourite car of all time, I often wonder if I shouldn’t have overruled my wife’s comment and done the deal anyway. In closing, it was the last time that she had any input in the decision as to whether or not I should buy another car, motorcycle, boat etc.
Ok its a clean car that is older then me, I still think its ugly.
One of the final Frazer Nash models was the Continental, which combined a Porsche 356 body with a front-mounted V8 engine.
@Bill McCoskey. I started in the classic car movement in 1976 and my children were 11 and 7. All my life since then I have been an old car/bike petrol head and tried to offload my “wisdom” to my kids but to no avail. Then my 2 grandsons arrived in 1996 and 2004, showed no interest in my collection of old cars and bikes or my classic car dealership where there were Ferrari’s, Maserati’s, Porsche etc. so when I decided that I had enough of the dramas involved, battling for cash from buyers etc. I closed it down. Now they are interested in drifting, F1, Moto GP etc. and now they want to know why I sold out! The youngest boy, 19, told me only 3 days ago that he is saving to buy his first car, a British 1959 Ford Zodiac Mk 2 as per photo! Oh well, I did try.
Solosolo, I think you actually made a difference in at least one younger family member. A 1959 car is still over 60 years old! And if a kid born in 2004 likes a 60 year old car, I say you made a difference.
I hate to hear when someone sells off the collection because there has been little family interest, only to have them say “You sold the cars? How could you!”
The main reason was due to my partner running off with the whole bank account funds leaving me with not enough money to buy a hamburger! I put more money into the business and carried on for another two years before getting solvent again and a bit in the bank to keep me above water. From then on I went into selling from home, largely with consignment cars as I had built up a strong following among the local classic car owners, and with much lower overheads I did very well until I retired and moved to UK where I have NO connection to old cars or bikes other than being a member of the local classic car club. However, I have told my grandson that if he finds a decent Zodiac I will help him buy it. Oh, and the eldest tells me that he is looking at a Mazda MX 5, what you guys call a Miata, so all is not lost.(Yet)