User:Bristol7527

I am an unusual member, because I am a car.

You see, there are certain cars that live for a very long time. I was born in 1969... although to be more accurate, I was built, hand-made, in an aeroplane factory in Bristol, England. When the internet came along, I got my own gmail address, Yahoo ID, etc. which is passed on to each human who owns me, so my identity remains. I moved from England to the USA in the 1980's (New York), then I moved again to New Zealand where they drive on the correct side of the road so my steering wheel is in the right place (in the USA I felt like I should deliver mail).

My current owner (2017) was the North American registrar for the Bristol Owners Club which is why he found me, sadly abandoned in a classic car restoration yard. Holes in my chassis, mice having taken up residence under my seat which was cute, except for the smell which took a lot to eradicate. If I had been a normal car, I would have been recycled as beer cans (yes, my body is made of aircraft aluminium), but because I am so rare (I am serial number 27 of the 411-S1 line... there were only 78 of us made), I was rescued and absurd amounts of money invested to restore me to life... the chassis repaired, body restored, engine rebuilt. The coolest part is my leather interior. Leather is expensive, but my owner went to the closing down auction of the Xena Warrior Princess film set and bought the whole leather room... like about NZ$30,000 worth of leather for $800. He took me to one of the top car upholsterers who was inbetween jobs and needed cash who retrimmed me in Holywood leather - how cool is that!

Anyway, I am here to set up a Wiki so the oldtimer knowledge about how to keep us on the road is not lost. One of my cousins, a 1955 Bristol 405 Drophead (only 42 of them made) was sent back to the factory in 1998, and the same man who built her in 1955 was still there to rebuild her. That's knowledge worth keeping.