By July 1945 the Bristol Aeroplane Company had set up a car division to find peacetime work, and had taken a controlling stake in AFN, the makers of Frazer Nash cars. Using pre-war BMW designs obtained through that connection, it built the Bristol 400, prototyped in 1946 and launched at the 1947 Geneva Motor Show.
The BMW-derived six-cylinder engine powered Bristols until 1961, when the 407 introduced the Chrysler V8s used from then on. The car business was sold off in 1960 when its aircraft-making parent joined the merger of British aircraft companies, and former racing driver and Bristol dealer Tony Crook became sole owner in 1973. That year the factory moved from the Filton airfield to nearby Patchway.
Bristol hardly advertised and sold its cars from one showroom, on the corner of Kensington High Street and Holland Road in London. Models such as the 411, 603, Blenheim and the gull-winged Fighter were built in very small numbers. The company went into administration in 2011 and was bought by Kamkorp, but a planned revival came to nothing and Bristol Cars was wound up in 2020.
