$47,500
Indianapolis, Indiana
Category
-
Engine
-
Posted Over 1 Month
View our eBay StoreSign up for our Email Newsletter 1949 Bristol 400 Coupe offered with a reserve This rare and attractive car is in very nice condition save for some cracking lacquer. It runs and drives exceptionally well and has just been fully serviced and is ready for the road. In the current owners care for roughly the past 20 years, the car has always been kept stored inside, and used on sunny summer days only. This is a rare opportunity to acquire an exciting Post War British Sports car powered by a legendary BMW designed engine that stood the test of time. We have many more photographs of this car, please click on any image to be taken to our full-size image list! The Bristol 400 luxury car is the first automotive product of the British Bristol Aeroplane Company. After World War II, BAC decided to diversify and formed a car division, which would later be the Bristol Cars company in its own right. BAC subsequently acquired a licence from Frazer Nash to build BMW models. Bristol chose to base its first model on the best features of two outstanding pre-war BMWs, namely the 328's engine, and the 326's frame. These were covered with a neat mainly steel body but with aluminium bonnet, door and boot skins and inspired by the BMW 327's. The Bristol 400 featured a slightly modified version of BMW's six-cylinder pushrod engine of 1,971 cc (bore 66 mm, stroke 96 mm). This engine, considered advanced for its time due to its hemispherical combustion chambers and very short inlet and exhaust ports, developed 80 horsepower at 4,500 revs per minutes and could carry the 400 to a top speed of around 148 km/h (92 mph) with acceleration to match. In order to maintain a hemispherical combustion chamber, the valves had to be positioned at an angle to the head. In order to drive both sets of valves from a single camshaft, the Bristol engine used a system of rods, followers and bell-cranks to drive the valves on the far side of the engine from the camshaft. The gearbox was a four-speed manual with synchromesh on the upper three ratios and a freewheel on first. The model 400 was the only Bristol to be fitted with a steel and aluminum skin, and had all flat glass, but for the curved rear window, glazed in perspex, which was available to specification with a top hinge. This feature was very welcome on warmer climate export markets, where the sliding door windows provided only marginal ventilation to the passengers. The 400 featured independent front suspension with a transverse leaf spring and a live axle, located by an A-bracket over the differential case and longitudinal torsion bars with transverse arms and brackets at the rear. It featured a lengthy 2895 mm (114 inch) wheelbase and a very BMW-like grille at the front of its long bonnet. The passenger area was very short, with the spare tyre mounted inside the boot on the first cars, but eventually mounted on the rear hinged boot lid, inside an aluminum cover. Total Production from 1947 thru 1950 was 487 units. Our Ebay Policies: Significant Cars is one of the largest Collector Car Brokers and Dealers in the Country. Since 2003 we have worked hard to "change the way collector cars find new homes" by providing unparralleled web presentation of the cars we are representing. Most of our cars have over 30 photographs, and these can be viewed by visiting our website (our eBay handle dot com), or by clicking on any of the photographs in the black background area of our EBay listings. We welcome your call with any questions about any of our listings at anytime at 800-837-9902 and certainly encourage your personal inspection of any of the cars we are selling-just call us and we will be happy to set up an appointment for your to see and test drive the car. We realize that eBay is a difficult venue to properly evaluate an item as complex as an automobile. You can feel secure bidding with confidence on any of our cars since we guarantee your satisfaction! Should you win the auction and come to see the car and decide you do not want it for any reason, no negative feedback will result, any deposit you may have paid will be cheerfully refunded. Description images and copy © Significant Cars, Inc.
Trim 400 Coupe
