Bristol disambiguation - Bristol RE & Bristol 400.

I received an e-mail form Hans in Oldenburg asking if there is any connection between the Bristol Car Company and Bristol Commercial Vehicles to which the answer in German is 'jaein', yes and no.



In 1874 George White, born in Kingsdown, Bristol, round the corner from where yours truly lives, was working for a firm of solicitors responsible for the promotion of the Bristol Tramways Company and became involved with the Imperial Tramways Company operating across parts of England and London United Tramways operating in West London.



These horse drawn tram operators were merged in 1887 into the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company of which George White was Managing Director. By 1900 he had been promoted to Chairman of the BT&CC. BT&CC started building vehicles, initially with chassis from Filton fitted with bodies from it's Brislington works in 1908 after the Thorneycrofts and FIATs it had been operating were found to be too unreliable.



Bristol Commercial Vehicles, based wholly in Brislington, was separated from the bus operating company Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company in 1955. This 1969/70 Bristol RE (Rear Engine), with bodywork by Eastern Coach Works of Lowestoft, was the most successful first generation rear engined bus, production started in 1962 and continued until 1982 though in it's last years it was only supplied to customers in Northern Ireland and New Zealand after being absorbed by British Leyland in 1972.



After witnessing a flight by Wilbur Wright in France in 1909 the now titled Sir George White Bt (Baronet, 6th division of aristocracy below Lords above all but two levels of Knights, a hereditary title issued to commoners of wealth originally but public service latterly) founded the Bristol Aeroplane Company in 1910 for commercial aircraft production.



The Bristol Car Company was born out of the Bristol Aeroplane Company in 1947 under the leadership of Sir George White Bt's grandson George Stanley Midelton White although the cars were marketed for several years as being made by the Bristol Aeroplane Company run by his father Sir George Stanley White, Bt.



So the two companies manufacturing vehicles bearing the 'Bristol' name are connected through the White family but not through any commercial or technical arrangements, of course the Bristol Car Company is the only one that survives. The blue car in the photo's is one of the 487 Bristol '400' models made between 1947 and 1950.

Thanks for joining me on today's commercial disambiguation edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres' I hope you'll join me for tomorrow's Bristol Blue, edition. Don't forget to come back now !

Special Drophead - Bristol 401 Cabriolet

Continuing the Centenary Celebration of the Bristol Aeroplane Company out of which Bristol Cars was born, today we are looking at another unique car a Bristol 401 Drophead.



Between 1948 and 1953 Bristol Cars built 611 401 coupes and 23 mechanically identical 402's cabriolets.



Sources close to the Bristol Owners Club assure me that this vehicle, seen at a VSCC meeting at Prescott, is a one off special 401 coupe converted into a cabriolet.

Hope you have enjoyed today's special drophead edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres' and will join me again tomorrow for some Bristol disambiguation. Don't forget to come back now !

You can't go wrong with a Bristol under the bonnet - Lister Bristol

It's a great pleasure to present another couple of photo's today by Ed Arnaudin courtesy of his son Steve.



In 1954 Brian Lister produced an MG powered sports car at his Cambridge iron works for Archie Scott Brown to drive. Disappointed with the results on it's debut Brian had a 6 cylinder 2 litre Bristol engine installed and Archie won his class next time out at a meeting supporting the 1954 British Grand Prix beating half a dozen more powerful C-type Jaguars.



For 1955 a handful Lister Bristol's were built for customers and the vehicle pictured at Thompson CT is one of those cars, driven to a class win on 20th July 1958 by Ray Cuomo who raced a huge variety of interesting vehicles from the mid 50's to mid 70's.

The #132 in the back ground top picture is the Lester MG driven by F Stone and the #32 is an Alfa Romeo Veloce driven by R Anderson in a different race.

My thanks to Vince H and Terry O'Neil at The Nostalgia Forum for helping me with some of the background information and as ever to Ed and Steve Arnaudin for taking and furnishing these photographs.

Hope you have enjoyed today's Bristol powered edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres', tomorrow I hope you will join me tomorrow for a look at an unusual Bristol 401.

Smoke & Mirrors - Ferrari 250 GT/E 2+2 #2835

One of the 954 Ferrari 250 GT/E 2+2s was Enzo Ferrari's daily driver of choice while it was in production from 1960 to 1963.



In the mid 1990's Tom Zat commissioned Mark Gerisch and M & L Auto Specialists, of Wisconsin to convert his 250 GT/E 2+2 #2835, into a replica 250 GT SWB Competizione of which just 73 original models were made.

As the Bonhams catalogue said when this vehicle came under the auctioneers hammer in May 2008,
"exciting and fully road legal, this highly desirable and versatile Ferrari represents a wonderful opportunity to acquire an attractive facsimile of the much sought after and legendary 250GT SWB Competizione at a fraction of the price. "

Hope you have enjoyed Ferrari Friday, back again tomorrow with a unbelievably cool Lister Bristol at Thompson CT in 1958, don't forget to come back now !

Peoples car - Жигули (Zhiguli) 2106

Well OK it is a Lada but this one is branded for the home market. Avtovaz originally called Volzhsky Avtomobliny Zavod or VAZ for short marketed its FIAT 124 derivatives under the Lada brand for export, around 60 % of production and under the Zhiguli brand inside Russia.



The cars they built were initially beefed up FIAT 124's with thicker steel panels, smaller, more robust less powerful overhead cam engines not seen on any other FIAT vehicles, designed to run on low 93 octane fuel and fitted with aluminium rear drum brakes in place of discs. Perfect for harsh conditions from Siberia all the way down to deserts of Egypt.



A couple of batches of these vehicles were supplied to the militia with rotary wankel engines allegedly based heavily on Mazda technology. Many of these militia vehicles, all supplied without revolution counters did not make it as far as their first oil change, upon failure these the motors were swapped out for the more conventional 4 cylinder 1.2 / 73 cui and 1.3 litre / 79 cui units. Rotary Zhigulis are still to be found in the preowned car market of Moscow.



The overall body was little changed during production from 1970 to 1984 when the model was replaced by the Riva, itself a model once stripped of all the plastic and lights was pretty much the same as the 2103 series seen here.



I managed to decipher Жигули in cyrillic script on the badge with a little help from Alexey Rogachev on The Nostalgia Forum. Alexey informs me that the Zhiguli name is taken from the Zhiguli Mountains at the bottom of which is a town Tolyatti, named after an Italian communist, where these vehicles were built.



It is thought somewhere around 18 million Avtovaz FIAT 124 derived vehicles have been built since 1970, incredibly later Riva derivatives are still being assembled to this day in a Suzuki plant in Egypt.

Hope you have enjoyed this cyrillic edition of Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres', and that you'll join me tomorrow Ferrari Friday. Don't forget to come back now !

Comfortable presence or large and in charge - Bentley Azure

This was the first time I saw and indeed heard of a Bentley Azure, though all I heard when I first became acquainted with this one was a faint whisper of a seemingly far off air conditioning unit, I was surprised when I turned around and found this gargantuan vehicle pulling up right next to me.



Since 1998 Volkswagen have been the owners of the Bentley marque having purchased it from Vickers and in the process separated Bentley from, former owner since 1931, Rolls Royce which was sold to the Bavarian Motor Works.



This second generation (2006 - 2009) Azure is powered by a 450 hp 6,750 cc / 411 cui, twin turbo V8, with origins that can be traced to the V8's used in the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II, Phantom V and Bentley S2 of 1959. The power is transmitted to the rear wheels with the aid of a 6 speed automatic gearbox made for this model only.



Handling of this 2,801 kg / 6,175 lb vehicle is said to be free of pitch and roll.



The engine is capable of propelling the Azure up to 60 mph from rest in just 5.6 seconds, and on to 168 mph. Unsurprisingly the Azures fuel consumption is amongst the worst on record at between 9 - 15 miles per US gallon, if you need to ask these figures I guess you do not own the requisite oil field or two to keep the Bentley Azure in motion anyway.



This vehicle is longer wider and obviously taller than an Audi R10 TDI Le Mans race car in fact it is larger than several mini buses with an overall length of 5.342 m / 210 inches, a width of 2.057 m / 81 inches, and wheelbase of 3.061 m / 120 inches. More than comfortable for four adults and their luggage to waft down to the South of France for a weekend on the beach.

Hope you have enjoyed today's XXXL edition of Gettin' a lil psycho on tyres and that you'll join me for a look at a slightly more modest black model built in the foot hills of the Zhiguli Height mountains in Toliatti tomorrow. Don't forget to come back now !

Real Fast Lorry - Bentley 3/4.5 litre Fixed Head Coupe 1924

For a carceaologist like myself vintage Bentley's, referred to by Ettore Bugatti as 'the fastest lorries in the World' are a bit of a nightmare because the original bodywork of many of them has long since rotted away, many of those bodies have been replaced with replica Van den Plas Le Mans bodies. A few of Bentley's have chassis with not much in the way of original fabric either.



One disputed Bentley chassis recently turned up in the law courts which had chassis members from three different models front, middle and rear ! Unless you have an exceptionally strong belief in the concept of 'entity' you may struggle to accept that some vintage Bentley's are vintage and or indeed Bentley's at all.



Gareth Graham is seen here driving a vehicle owned by BJA Collings, not to be confused with the BBC comedy 'Stig' character Ben Collings, during the VSCC meeting at Loton Park in September.

The Fixed Head Coupe featured today has a 1924 chassis but with a 110 hp 4,398 cc / 268 cui 4 cylinder engine that was not available with these 3 litre chassis until 1927. If the vehicle is on its original licence plates it was first registered in Essex.

Hope you have enjoyed today's vintage edition of 'Getting a lil' psycho on tyres', and that you will join me tomorrow for a look at a gargantuan contemporary Bentley. Don't forget to came back now !