Bristol in France 1988

Gavin McHamish, George McHamish, Andy Lewis

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Two years ago I bought a 1950 Bristol 401, one of the early ones with a ridge along the bottom of the doors (they call that a "tumble-home", but to me it's a ridge and it doesn't tumble anywhere).  A previous owner painted the car silver, which is impressive if not period, and left the engine for the next owner to sort out.  Persistent overheating led to taking the head off, and a card on top of the broken up pistons said "complete rebuild - do not pass GO - do not collect £200".  Phone calls to a number of 401 owners picked from the membership booklet (all of them very friendly and glad to help where they could) led me eventually to Paul Burd of Performance Auto Services in Bristol.  He used to work for Bristol Cars, and seems to know all the little tricks which  make a 2-litre engine tick properly.  About a year after buying it, I had the car back on the road.  Gradually my confidence and my respect for the car increased as I drove it.  I reversed my original opinion that a race against a Ford Transit van would end badly for the Bristol.  Then I took it to Kwik-Fit for a set of Michelin radial taxi tyres - the difference was amazing!  Gone was the judder at every little road bump, the uncertainty and tyre-squealing going round corners.  Unless you like that sort of thing, don't delay and splash out on a set of radials- it will be the most effective £200 you spend on your car.  (O! the fanaticism of the newly converted!)

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I already had the guaranteed company of No.2 son George, and ex-work-mate Andy (who used to have a Lotus Elan Plus-2) swooned when I told him my plans and so he joined the party. 

As soon as convenient in May seemed a good idea.  Although we had planned a long weekend, it was the ferry timetables that determined the trip.  The Calais end of France is a bit boring to me.  Portsmouth to Normandy is fine, but anything further than Cherbourg takes too long.  Only one ferry per week this year goes at mid-day, which means that you can leave London in the morning and get to a reasonable hotel in France that night.   So we left London at 8am on Saturday and started off down the Kingston bypass.

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Halfway down there were roadworks of course, which caused a bit of 5 cylinder running.  An interesting journey ahead, we wondered?   The stainless exhaust on the car is very low slung, but fears of horrible graunchings as we penetrated the bowels of the ferry were unfulfilled.  The 4 1/2 hour crossing itself was smooth, warm and boring, which is as much as you can hope for I suppose.  French officials waved us through with gallic contempt, and before we realised it we were pulling strongly up the long slope out of Cherbourg.  Our first night was to be at the Tournee de la Vallee at Quettreville, just south of Coutances.  Andy chose it with a pin from his Logis de France book, and what a choice!  The rooms were fine, but supper was superb.  It was one of those 85 franc menus where the ingredients for the first course alone must surely have cost more.  A bottle of sidre for young George, Muscadet for Andy and red infuriator for me set the pattern for the trip.  Pudding was so delicious that we had second helpings of each others' first choice.  We were so proud of our cleverness at being in Normandy when we might so easily have stayed at home that we went rather over the top with the Calvados, but at least I now know what to use the next time I need to clean the 401's suspension.

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Next morning we visited the supermarche (everything is open on Sunday, even in a small village) and stocked up on bread, camembert, saucisson, jambon de bayonne, yaourt, apples and cherries.  Part of the fantasy had been to buy one of those large wicker hampers that come with strapped in cutlery and crockery, thermos flasks and three handy bottle sized recesses.  The hotels all happily put our blue cool-bag thingies in their freezers overnight, and we had also packed three folding garden chairs.  The other part of the fantasy was to set these down next to a stream under the shade of a tree and have a spot of dejeuner sur the herbe.  So we set off vaguely south, along pleasantly hilly roads, waiting for a suitable stream to appear.  It didn't, of course, and we had to resort to skilful map-reading to make it happen.  When we did find it it was a deserted picnic site by a lake, complete with BOC-style pedalos awaiting the arrival of the season.  Bliss.  Bliss, that it, until George says "You know you put your wallet under the mattress before dinner last night - did you take it out again this morning?"   It is at times like these that certain words seem to have been invented by someone with perfect foresight.  I am (used to be) a seasoned traveller, and was far too blase.  Besides, Andy had paid for that night's hospitality, so I had had no occasion to miss my wallet in the morning.  Fortunatly we were only 50 miles away as the crow flies, and without further ado we charged back to Quettreville.  Added to the worry about the loss of passports, tickets and money was the fear of being observed by madame groping around under a mattress and, well, generally letting the side down.  But all was well, and I emerged from my supplicatory pose next to the bed with graphic evidence that while les anglais may be a bit dopey at times they are not completely boncquers.

 

So where to next?  We had considered a dash down to the Loire for a chateau or two, but had lost too much ground.  So we decided on Le Mans, and pushed south.  Going up a hill coming out of a town the engine conked out.  Sit perfectly still, try to think of nothing at all (this is called "psyching the engine"), and after a decent interval press the starter.  Vrooom, and we're off - phew!  Next town, next hill, splutter splutter.  Aha- l'essence- quel ploncqeur!  In spite of the needle saying half full, it was rather a long time since we last had 200 francs worth- over 200 miles in fact.  Pull out the five-litre can, tipple it in and we're away!  Stop at the next gas station and tell him plein, but not trop fort because it tends to overflow if you fill it too enthusiastically.  After a while there are great gesturings under the car- l'essence is seen to be pouring down all over the place.  Zut alors!  I pondered the concurrence of this with the pervasive smell of petrol from the back seat and my bodging attempts to get the petrol gauge calibrated without replacing the gasket on the flange, and wondered if they might by any chance be related.  I concluded that they were, which was a good conclusion because it meant we could just leave the petrol puddle on the forecourt and press on without any more worry to the next Logis- Le Manoir in Langivy-le-desert.  This was a traditional heavy French hotel with 20 rooms, one other English couple and indifferent (for France) food.  They did have a pool table (billiards Anglais) where we got in some practice before bed.

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Next day felt confident enough to give the others a go at the driving-  it really is a very easy car to drive.  They talk in books about "rowing" a 401 along with the "porridge-stirrer" gear lever.  Do you ever suspect that some thoroughly misleading things have entered the folklore and become accepted fact in the face of all the evidence?  Perhaps I'm a terribly insensitive driver, but in the 401 as in no other car I just get it up into 4th and keep it there up hill and down dale, through villages and round tractors, and it is this superbly willing pulling power that for me makes the car such a grand tourer.

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Again careful map reading paid off- one of those little symbols like a lighthouse flare led us up a narrow dirt road to a spot just wide enough to park, with a walk 50 yards through the woods to a grassy meadow at the top of a hill with a panoramic view, of the sort that gives food for the thought about why French countryside looks different from English - something to do with the Enclosures act I suspect.   Forty winks later we are en route for Le Mans, which turns out to be a town superior to Swindon only in the eficacy of its by-pass.  But now and then there are hints of romance in signs proclaiming AC de l'Ouest and Mulsanne, and then suddenly you're on it, actually bombing down the Mulsanne straight at 55mph!  The road is smooth, the Armco enveloping and cosy, bet I could do 220 in a Porsche, no worries!  At the end of the straight the lorries carry on to Mulsanne, and we vere off right towards Arnage.  The road is still beautifully smooth and wide, but deserted and with interesting bends, and I confess to touching 80mph before hearing the voice of James Hunt telling Murray why I lost it in the esses.  The grandstands loom up, and we pull in for a look around.  Some nutter is going round the Bugatti circuit far too fast on a motorbike- we leave him to it and go for a look at le musee de l'auto.  The museum is weird- just lines of cars in more or less chronological order, dusty and some very grotty, minimal information, weird juxtapositions.  An 'orrible Renault-modified presidential Nash Rambler next to a Touring-bodied Ferrari barchetta, for example.  Had a look round the facilities with the idea of coming over for the big beano, but conclude that I am not interested enough in modern "sports" racing to put up with le 24 heures du stinking lavabos.

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On to the next Logis, this time a travelling salesman sort of pub in Fresnay.  Restaurant has only one menu (Sunday seems to have been postponed to Monday in France) and Madame reckons we'd be better of noshing at Le Grand Cerf round the corner.  Le Cerf turns out not to be very grand, caff in the front with restaurant in the back.  Have a sound rather than exceptional meal again, then repair to the caff bit to have a go at le Billiard Anglais.  Have a couple of very casual frames, and sure enough one of the locals slaps down a 10-franc piece on the edge of the table.  This international language for a challenge to play the winner of the current game.  Andy, the best of us, beats me and glances worriedly over at us as Johnny Frenchman breaks off.  Soon it is apparent that yesterdays practice has paid off, for Andy wins the frame and in fact sees off two further French challenges.  By now it was rather late, and the place was closing down as we were challenged to an international at spin-football, in which French honour would have been more than redeemed. 

Tuesday morning was an opportunity to explore Fresnay- one of those gorge towns with a river, mill, mediaeval bridge, ruined fort perched 300 ft above, narrow streets full of gesticulating Peugeots, and an ideal square for artistic poses of the Bristol to use up the last of the Kidacolor.  We spent the rest of the day working our way back to Cherbourg in time for a visit to the supermarche to stock up on saucisson and vast quantities of those little bottles of beer, £3.50 for 25 of them, very tasty and just the right quantity for casual refreshment on a warm English summer afternoon.  Ferry at 6.30, smooth as a millpond, zoom up A3 and tucked up in a proper English bed again just after midnight.

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We were, of course, extremely lucky with the weather (it was that heat-wave weekend in May).  The car performed magnificently.  I patronisingly planned to stretch it a bit to see where its limits are, but I didn't really get close and feel I could tour all over Europe without needing to approach any limit.  There is even a hint of disapointment that the Bristol does not give a more "vintage" motoring experience - I compare it now with my Vauxhall Carlton without making allowances for its age.  What a car it must have been in 1950!

Details:  Total mileage 600 miles.  Speed 55mph when ambling, 75mph when pressing on.  Petrol consumption - no idea.  Engine oil consumption 2 litres (there's a traditional-style leak on the rear near-side of the engine).  Gearbox oil- nil.  Rear axle oil- 2 litres (it leaks irregularly from the middle and both ends).  Water- none.  Oil pressure cold 80psi, warm 75psi, idling 50psi.  Oil temperature 70 deg when settled, up to 90 and unhappy in traffic jams (there is an oil cooler fitted).  Water temperature 50deg maximum- I think the gauge is ok because the radiator certainly never feels terribly hot.  Worrying noises of the type one can easily become increasingly obsessed by on a long journey:  slight wum-wum-wum from left side wheel bearings going round fast right hand bends too fast.

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Ferry crossing £75 return for car and three passengers (no kidding).  Insurance green card from car insurers £25 (extends fully comp to continent, which is a rip-off if you ask me and I shan't do it next time).  AA 5-star £40, like having Relay in UK- probably worth it for peace of mind and to avoid boring hassle in case of a boring breakdown (as opposed to a non-boring major incident).  Small hotel £15-20 each.  Dinner £15-20 each including sufficient liquid refreshment.  Fee for raising car on a ramp and pumping 2 litres of oil into back axle (and a further 2 litres sur le tapis) £6.