There is a certain type of Englishman whose huge muscular power even the subtlest of Savile Row tailors cannot disguise. He is a cultured, perfectly mannered cheerful sort with a cut-glass accent who would, with equal equanimity, politely pass the scones at teatime at Claridge’s or equally affably attempt tear your head from your shoulders in a loose maul on the Oxford University rugby field. He is, if you can conceive of such a thing, a fusion of Sir Laurence Olivier and Martin Johnson.
Oddly, there is a car with precisely the same characteristics; not surprisingly it too is English. Perfectly bred, flawlessly mannered and subtly clad in bespoke panel-beaten aluminum that does little to disguise its enormous power, it is quite simply a brute in a suit. In a curious coincidence, it was designed to seat drivers as big as the 6 feet 6 inch Martin Johnson comfortably.
The cream on the scone, so to speak, is that few have heard of the Bristol and fewer still seen one. In the world of exotic cars, none is more exclusive.
That exclusivity is not created just by price or the numbers produced, but also by the particular tastes of the clients who buy them. More than any other automobile, a Bristol is the embodiment of craftsmanship, history, engineering excellence and according to Richard Hackett who meets potential clients, enthusiasm.
“Both clients and builders of the cars are enthusiasts to the core,” he said describing the relationship between Bristol owners and the company. “There isn’t really a typical Bristol owner.”
“Customers are individuals, intelligent thinking people who want to know why we do things the way we do,” said Toby Silverton the owner of the company. “We are delighted to tell them.” He gave a telling example of what he described as the fashion of “throwing” aluminum at a car to reduce weight. It does not always work, he explained. “Metals components decline in tensile strength as they age. Steel loses about 20 percent and settles. Aluminum declines further and eventually breaks. That is why aircraft, heavily reliant on aluminum, have a finite life.”
“Our customers genuinely want to know that everything has been done the right way.”
Almost all Bristols ever built are still in use and generate an intense loyalty among their owners and builders alike. Sid Lovesy has been with the company since it was founded 63 years ago. At 89 years old, he works a six-day week checking the quality of the cars as they leave the works and has driven nearly all of them. Hackett was unsure however whether Sid had driven the 1012 horsepower 437kph Fighter T. “They are really quite fast,” he said. “But we electronically limit them to a perfectly adequate 362 kph.”
He politely declined to speculate on whether anyone would ever receive an unlimited vehicle.
To describe the Fighter T as ‘quite fast’ is something of an
understatement and typical of Bristol’s ethos. “Always understated, never underrated” is the company motto; the Fighter range is the embodiment of that. It is truly a brute in a suit; immensely powerful but subtly and beautifully appointed. No flash, no ‘bling’ just the pure minimalist lines demanded by submission to the overall design criterion of pure aerodynamics; a perfect melding of function and form.
Faster and more powerful than the Bugatti Veryon, the Fighter T is the fastest production car in the world. With a CD rating of 0.255, its wind resistance is 30 percent less than the Veyron. The cabin is teardrop shaped to reduce resistance and noise and is a direct link to the company’s early days as producers of some of the best known military aircraft of the last century. The smooth exterior with not even a side badge or protruding door handle hints at the drive for minimum air resistance. The only concession, and that is purely in the interests of safety, is that the headlights are recessed and not faired in. Apparently that reduces the potential top speed by two kilometers an hour but gives much better illumination.
“We wanted a bit of a challenge, a real sports model in fact,” said Hackett when asked why the new model was introduced. Bristol is noted for their rapid sports saloons; this is the company’s answer to that self-imposed challenge. Asked if the Fighter really was ‘all new’ as he described, Hackett thought for a moment. “Well, we kept the badge,” he admitted.
Driving the Fighter — the one I was invited to try by Toby Silverton who owns the company was the 550hp Fighter — is a remarkable experience. It was with some trepidation as the first journalist so invited that I took the wheel. The first impression was of sitting in a very secure but luxurious safety cell that resembled an aircraft cockpit more than a sports car. Massive 15cm steel beams comprise the main chassis and provide the strong point for two high tensile — and completely concealed — roll over bars. The gull-wing carbon fiber doors close with a reassuring clunk as do the optional four-point seat belts.
A failing of modern mass-produced cars is the lack of instrumentation. Bristol, assuming their clients understand something of the engineering that goes into cars and wish to know what is happening in theirs, has provided an analog white on black gauges. The most used — oil, water, voltage, oil and fuel pressure for example are located immediately in front of the driver and very easily visible. True to aircraft practice, less frequently used instruments and switches are located on the cabin roof — easy to access but to be used while stationary.
The 75 percent Ackerman steering geometry gives this the most compact supercar at 4.420 x 1.796 meters a surprisingly tight turning circle with 2.7 turns of the wheel lock to lock. Coupled with a very flexible power delivery from the gently rumbling engine, the car is surprisingly easy to drive in busy streets. Such is the torque from the V10 8.3 liter engine that third gear on the manual six-forward speed box is all one needs. The close ratio box allows speeds up to 100kph — in first gear!
The gearbox has a very precise gate, zero lateral wobble and extremely decisive changes. The Fighters come standard with a manual gearbox; the clients almost to a man like the manual box. “Each car is different and each client has unique requirements,” Hackett said. “We could provide an automatic box if asked; can’t offhand remember when we last did though.” Silverton added that the gearbox, when delivered is completely disassembled and rebuilt to Bristol standards.
Part of the secret of Bristol quality said Silverton was to train the suppliers of the parts they have made to Bristol specifications. “They are surprised when, after we give each piece a minute inspection, that we return some and inform them that they are not exactly to our drawings. Often we receive the comment that ‘Everyone else accepts them that way.’ He paused, “We remind them that we are not ‘everyone else.’”
For a luxurious car, the noise level in the cabin and the solid feel of the suspension remind the driver that this is a very able sports car. With switchable traction control but no ABS braking — “we found it counterproductive on slippery gravel surfaces” — the car is truly a driver’s car. Very well mannered in town, the melodious basso profundo rumble always hints at just what the car is capable of.
Put your foot down and you unleash the beast. The torque comes in at tickover (350ft/lb) and keeps coming until what Bristol describes as the ‘generous’ amount peaks at 525ft/lb at 4,200 rpm. I got the impression that we were accelerating extremely rapidly, but the leather, wood and carbon fiber appointments in the comprehensively equipped cabin and the easy thoroughbred power of the engine provided a contrasting feel of calm and control in the midst of mighty under-bonnet activity. Hard acceleration and cornering simply pressed one a little further into the leather bucket seat and even hard braking was almost completely free of front end dive.
At speeds in excess of 240 kph, the aerodynamics take on a ram-air characteristic and push the output of the power unit from a bench rated 500 hp to 550hp. The absence of wings, down-force winglets and other fashionable accessories is unnecessary as the car is so aerodynamic that the combination of weight (52 percent on the rear wheels) and lack of lift from the design keeps it precisely where it is supposed to be; on the road. The latest models, the Fighter S and T have a very modest 5 cm (all that was found necessary) upturn on the trailing edge of the cabin to assist wake diffusion.
Excellent feedback from the steering wheel allows perfect positioning of the car on the road and adds to the ability to drive the Fighter hard through tight corners or swing through long sweeping bends with total predictability. The hard suspension effectively eliminates body roll and there is never a sense that back end drift will take you by surprise.
The whole feel of the car is that it is built to a standard and of a time when quality was defined by quiet luxury and not by price. Each car is handmade individually from surface plate upward. The bodywork is panel beaten by craftsmen and put together by a team of people who simply love what they do. It is made not manufactured; and it shows.
The formidable Fighter T, with twin turbo chargers and water-cooled inter-cooler built by Bristol engineers, is the latest addition. The Chrysler V10 engine, a power unit with a long history of reliability, is where the story starts; Bristol engineers ‘tweak’ the basic engine to over a thousand horsepower entirely in-house.
Do not let the luxury of the interior or the classic but slightly old fashioned style of the exterior fool you. These are drivers’ cars and very rare, built by immensely skilled enthusiasts for a clientele who share their love of engineering, quality and atavistic memories of ‘motoring’ rather than merely driving.
