MEET THE ANCESTOR
Two aeronautical giants and one chassis design that would undergo 75 years of evolution. Here’s how pre-war BMW 326 sired post-war Bristol 400
Post-war Bristol 400 gets acquainted with its pre-war BMW 326 progenitor
Brooklands is yet to open. It’s early, empty and hushed when we drive through the Campbell Gate. We proceed slowly. The 21st-century rush-hour, with its dawdling traffic, frustrated commuters and booming radios, shrivels in the rear-view mirror. It’s been a few years since I last visited this site, but you soon notice the differences. The big draw to me, however, is something that remains the same: the 111-year-old motorsport relic. It is an essential petrolhead pilgrimage, to come and bear witness to the exalted remains of the world’s first motor-racing circuit.
We’re here to retrace the evolutionary footsteps between Mike Dawes’ 1937 Frazer NASH-BMW 326 and Michael Barton’s 1946 Bristol Type 400. Why Brooklands? It was one of the venues where AFN Ltd (see panel) demonstrated the sporting talents of its Frazer NASH-BMW models. Headlines included HJ Aldington at the 1936 MCC High-speed Trial posting 98½ miles in the hour, before this was beaten in 1937 by Sammy Davis, who hit 103.97mph. Both records were set by the 328, which became the first sports car to average over 100mph in the hour. We’re also here because of Brooklands’ other significant history: the site hosted part of Britain’s aeronautical industry, which dovetails with the main business concerns of both BMW and the Bristol Aircraft Company.
BMW’S progress as a car manufacturer was nothing short of astounding – but then, so were the levels of the firm’s funding from the German state. In October 1928, BMW purchased Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach AG from Gothaer Waggonfabrik and continued to manufacture the licence-built Austin Seven, the Dixi 3/15 DA-1. BMW produced its first design in 1932 – the 3/20 – after cancelling the Austin licence. Interestingly, the ‘3’ denotes BMW’S third line of business, ‘1’ used for its aero-engine interests and ‘2’ for its motorcycle division.
Remarkably, by 1933 the company had launched its first six-cylinder model, the 1200cc 303. This was the first BMW to bear the ‘double-bean’ grille and it would form the basis of both the 1.5-litre 315 and 1.9-litre 319.
The 319’s successor, the 1971cc 50bhp 326, was built between 1936 and ’41, with production totalling 15,936. Designed by Dr Fritz Fiedler and styled by Peter Schimanowski, it was BMW’S first four-door car and the first with hydraulic brakes. It sat on an extremely rigid A-frame box-section chassis with front suspension via a transverse leaf spring and upper wishbones: the Austin Seven might have gone, but its influence was not forgotten. The live rear axle was suspended via longitudinal torsion bars, with double-acting dampers fore and aft.
The 72mph 326 would sire the 320, 321, 335 and the 327 (the chic short-wheelbase leafsprung coupé), while its 66 x 96mm M78 engine block underpinned the 328’s M328 engine. The M328 was crowned with a clever highercompression Schleicher-flemming cylinder head and capable of 80bhp at 4500rpm – this unit was also installed in the low-volume 327/28.
“There’s a lovely bit in the BMW board minutes from 1947,” explains Mike Dawes, who is also the treasurer of the BMW Historic Motor Club (UK), “when they’re lamenting making anything they can – knives, folks, saucepans and the like. To this, the finance director said: ‘We’ve got to face the fact that we are no longer being financed by the Reich Aviation Ministry.’ Göring was financing practically everything and this shows in the engineering of these cars.”
In Filton, come peacetime and the cancellation of War Office orders, BAC’S MD, Sir George Stanley White, knew that alternative work had to be found for the firm’s 70,000strong workforce. Among BAC’S new ventures, Sir Stanley’s son, George SM White, founded in 1945 what would become the Car Division. This mimicked a move BAC had taken after the Great War, which led to two prototype Monocar light cars and body-building contracts for Armstrong Siddeley and sister company Bristol Tramways’ Motor Department. However, doubtless recalling its experience with the Monocar and early aircraft designs, the company decided during the war to acquire an existing motor manufacturer.
The Aldington brothers of Frazer Nash, meanwhile, were keen to use their UK licence to manufacture BMWS and re-establish contacts with the firm. Their plan was to put the 326 into production, but there were problems: firstly, the Midlands’ short-sighted motor industry was not interested; secondly, the Ambi Budd factories, which had produced the 326’s body, were either completely destroyed or under Soviet control.
AFN could see that BAC would benefit from its manufacture and trade experience, while AFN, which lacked production facilities, would no longer have to deal with hostile sentiments around its products, which had been pungent enough before WW2; by late ’37, it was common for AFN to conceal the ‘Made In Germany’ engine-bay plates by fitting them face down.
An agreement was reached and BAC bought a majority stake in the firm with a view to building a Frazer Nash-bristol. BMW’S former chief designer Fiedler acted as project consultant, but the Bristol-aldington union was brief. AFN extricated itself due to different thinking, methodology and personality clashes. Although some Frazer Nash-bristol literature was printed, AFN came away with an exclusive engine supply and the car became the first Bristol.
And this is it – the first Bristol, built in 1946. ‘Old Number One’ JHY 261 is one of four prototype 400s built prior to the 429 production cars. The 400 was almost a BMW greatest hits compilation: the 326’s 9ft 6in-wheelbase chassis; the M328 engine; and a coupé body that did a good impression of the 327 rather than being a precise copy of it. Only one 400 chassis was older, but that wasn’t built into a complete car and was destroyed long ago.
BAC kept JHY 261 for development. It also competed and crashed in the 1949 Coupe des Alpes Rallye with Elsie (‘Bill’) and Tommy Wisdom. It remained in company ownership until acquired by Bristol’s Tony Crook in 1992. Appropriately, Michael Barton – Crook’s biographer and a founding member of the Bristol