Bristol 400 History

The 400 was Bristol's first car, prototyped in 1946 and publicly shown at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1947. Its origins lay in an unusual piece of post-war history: H. J. Aldington, whose family controlled AFN Ltd (BMW's pre-war UK concessionaire and the Frazer Nash company), used his wartime Army connections to visit the bomb-damaged BMW plant in Munich and returned with drawings, technical documentation, and eventually BMW's chief engineer Dr. Fritz Fiedler himself. The resulting car was a direct evolution of two celebrated pre-war BMWs: the engine came from the BMW 328 (a 1,971 cc hemispherical-combustion-chamber straight-six producing around 80 bhp with three SU carburettors), the chassis from the BMW 326, and the body styling from the BMW 327.

Built to the standards Bristol's aeroplane division applied to aircraft components, the 400 was expensive, impeccably finished, and capable of around 92–95 mph — fast for a road car in 1947. Approximately 430 examples were completed, including 17 fitted with a drophead body by Pininfarina. The 400 established everything that would define Bristol for the next 65 years: hand-built quality, engineering integrity, a single London showroom, no advertising, and very low production numbers.