This was amongst the cars displayed in the paddock at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1998.
It's the sole surviving example
of the three Bristol 450S cars that were built primarily to contest the Le Mans
24 Hour race, in which they competed with three different body styles in 1953,
1954 and 1955. The cars ran in the under 2 litre class and were powered by the
1,971cc straight-6 Bristol engine derived from the pre-war BMW 328 unit. The
1953 car had a coupé body with an unusual looking nose which had two headlamps,
two spotlights, and a series of air intakes including a strange series of slats
in the bodywork where the grille of the car would normally be. The rear of the
car was swept back with a fin on either side of the rear window. Two cars were
entered for the 1953 Le Mans race but both retired before the race was half way
through. For the 1954 race the body was altered, retaining the rear end of the
1953 car, but having the new nose as seen on the 1955 car in the above
photograph. Three cars were entered at Le Mans and they finished seventh,
eighth and ninth in the overall positions, and first, second and third in the 2
litre class. In 1955 the cars were given the open body as seen above, and again
finished seventh, eighth and ninth overall, and in the first three places in
the 2 litre class. After that race Bristol withdrew from racing, in part because
of the terrible accident there, and the best parts of the three cars were used
to build one car, the rest being scrapped. The owner of Bristol Cars, Tony
Crook, kept the car until 1992 when he sold it to Simon Draper who took it along to several historic race meetings to sit alongside the cars of other members of the Bristol Owners' Club, but the only time I saw it actually compete was at the Coys meeting at Silverstone in 1993 where it was driven by Stephen Archer.
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