News that Bristol Cars, the car company spun off the similarly named aeroplane company 75 years ago, is to be wound up, makes me think – happily and sadly – of its sometime owner and backbone Tony Crook, who this year would have celebrated his centenary had he lived beyond the grand old age of 94.  

The liquidation of Bristol adds a final straw to a modern saga of false starts, uncertainty and failure that dogged the former maker of 'gentlemen’s grand tourers' since Crook’s heyday of the 1950s to 1990s. He operated the company day-to-day until he was forcibly retired – by heavy-handed new owners who changed the locks on his beloved Kensington showroom – in 2007.  

Bristol Cars loses appeal against liquidation

Documents recently sent to Companies House show the High Court decided last December that the Bristol should be liquidated, with its assets sold to offset debts of about £7 million.

It was most recently owned by Kamkorp, a technology group operated from a Surrey estate by millionaire Kamal Siddiqui, who also owns the Frazer-Nash name. Kamkorp attempted to revive Bristol in 2016 by launching a BMW V8-engined speedster called the Bullet, but it came to nothing.

However, High Court documents show that no-one attended the December hearing to represent the old car company.

Bullet press 2341

Having lately heard the news, the Bristol Owners' Club is doing what it can through contact with the liquidators to offer “practical assistance” with a view to keeping the assets of the company together, and especially to finding a safe home for the Bristol archive.