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.
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In the day....
Icon, now I'm old enough to say I've, in my life, maybe seen two old examples, I'm talking early 60's cars, I've never, for want of a better description, seen a 21st Century car, I don't know much about Tony Crook so I can't comment on his career, but, over the years I've read various articles about the brand and they came over as elitist, you were invited to buy one, you understand that if every part of the car was made on site, but, yes it's a shame, and in these uncertain times, icons like this fold.
great news
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