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Wednesday 2 October 2013

Bristol 450S

The Bristol 450S was built specially to take part in long distance sports car races, in particular the Le Mans 24 hour race and the 12 hour one at Reims. You can read the history of the cars on this website. Interestingly, David Blakely, builder and driver of the Emperor HRG, was due to join the Bristol team at Le Mans for the 1955 race in June, probably as a reserve driver, but was shot dead by Ruth Ellis in April of that year.
After the 1955 Le Mans race, possibly as a result of the dreadful accident involving Pierre Levegh, Bristol withdrew from racing, the best components of the three cars were used to create one vehicle and the remaining ones were scrapped. That car has occasionally taken part in historic car races and was present at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1993 where I took the photographs below.
Despite what the board behind it says this is the Bristol 450S
Later in the day the weather had improved somewhat and here the car waits in the paddock to go out for a practice session
A rear view showing the distinctive tail fin

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