Other Makes NO RESERVE Restoration Project. Rare with Handbuilt aluminum body

1966 Bristol 409 Description

As you can see in the photographs, this Bristol 409 is a major project. It showed up on bringatrailer last year and I acquired it shortly afterwards in a trade for a different car. Those of you familiar with Bristol know that these were hand built in very small numbers as competitors to Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Iso, and Bentley. They offered the exclusivity of a hand built luxury car with the reliability of a Mopar 318 with push-button 727 Torqueflight automatic transmission. The car is about 95% complete missing the front grill, side trim, a side badge, Watts linkage arms, headlight housings and lens (Lucas) and tail light lens (Lucas). There might be a few minor items I can't remember. However pretty much everything else is there including all glass in good condition, switches, five original wheels, etc.

I have included pictures from when the car was assembled as well as some showing its current state and various pieces. The perimeter chassis is solid but I have cut out the floor, rear seating area on one side, and wheel arch on the left rear. Most of this sheet metal can be replicated with a brake. For wheel arches, there are quite a few available online that would be usable. Sheet metal in the front of the car is in better condition and could be patched if you prefer. Trunk floor also will need to be replaced (see picture).

I have spent an enormous amount of time carefully disassembling the car to the point where the next step would be to sandblast the chassis (note the aluminum roof has not been removed) and complete sheet metal work. The car was hit in the rear at some point - no damage to the chassis - and the body in the rear left corner was not well repaired. I removed most of the bondo on the aluminum body so the repairs can be done properly by the next owner. There are no secrets here.
There is corrosion where the body was screwed onto the chassis on the sides of the car. With those aluminum pieces off the car, they can be repaired. This is a common problem for pretty much all Bristol cars. Note the body has to be cut off the chassis, so it will need to be repositioned and welded back together. There are several online sites showing how this was done by other Bristol restorers.

You might have read that Bristol Motors recently was liquidated. Happily there are several owners' clubs that have collaborated to purchase all of the company's assets including parts, blueprints and fabrication bucks so I expect those will be available in the very near future.

Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions. The price is ridiculously low and certainly less than the value of the parts. What you pay now will be a fraction of the cost to restore the car, I don't believe anyone able to do a large portion of the work would be underwater given the high value of a restored car.

In regard to shipping: If the high bidder can have a container shipped to my address, I can arrange to have the car and all parts loaded into that. The only cost would be that of the cardboard containers and bubble wrap for glass and any other fragile pieces needing protection. That should be around $100 I estimate.

Sorry. I do not have eBay chat but if you contact me, I can share my cell phone information.
$500 deposit required within one week. Balance within 14 days unless other arrangements are made. I can help load parts.

Good luck bidding. There is No Reserve.