THE CARS
Bristol Fighter - Production: 2004
The Fighter had been a twinkle in Bristol's eye for many years, but the cost of development required an injection of capital that was not to occur until Toby Silverton's acquisition in about 1997.
Perhaps surprisingly, Bristol Cars made no secret of the Fighter project, announcing it in 1999 and showing the first examples in 2003. It was certainly a surprise for the pundits. After all, Bristol had been refining the 603 for a quarter of a century, and hadn't produced a two-seater since the type 404 25 years before that.
Less surprisingly to those who know the company and its cars, the thinking behind the Fighter was uncompromisingly different, reflecting more the design values of the 404 than those of other cars of similar performance. In particular, but in no particular order, these include: performance, handling, safety, efficiency, comfort and practicality.
Conspicuously absent from the list is appearance or styling: from the outset, it was clear that the Fighter would be representing a thorough-going engineering approach to the design goals. Thus, the Fighter achieves its astonishingly low drag factor and its high-speed handling and stability not from fins or spoilers, but from the basic geometry of the body shell. If the result is aesthetically pleasing – and the Fighter is a good-looking car – it is because visual grace is the natural concomitant of aerodynamic perfection.
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