The Bristol Fighter is a

sports car A sports car is a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving and racing capability. Sports cars originated in Europe in the early 1900s and are currently produced by ...

produced by

Bristol Cars Bristol Cars were manufacturers of hand-built luxury cars headquartered in Bristol, England. After being placed in receivership and being taken over in 2011, it entered liquidation in February 2020. After the Second World War, the car division ...

in small numbers from 2004 until the company suspended manufacturing in 2011. It is generally classed as a

supercar A supercar – also called exotic car – is a loosely defined description of street-legal, high-performance sports cars. Since the 2010s, the term hypercar has come into use for the highest performing supercars. Supercars commonly serve as t ...

. The

coupé A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...

body, which features

gullwing door In the automotive industry, a gull-wing door, also known as a falcon-wing door or an up-door, is a car door that is hinged at the roof rather than the side, as pioneered by Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, first as a race car in 1952 ( W194), and then a ...

s, was designed by former

Brabham Brabham () is the common name for Motor Racing Developments Ltd., a British racing car manufacturer and Formula One racing team. Founded in 1960 by Australian driver Jack Brabham and British-Australian designer Ron Tauranac, the team won four ...

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

engineer Max Boxstrom and gives the car a Cd of 0.28. The car uses a front-mounted

V10 engine A V10 engine is a ten-cylinder piston engine where two banks of five cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. V10 engines are much less common than V8 and V12 engine A V12 engine is a twelve-cylinder pis ...

, based on the engine in the

Dodge Viper The Dodge Viper is a sports car that was manufactured by Dodge (by SRT for 2013 and 2014), a division of American car manufacturer FCA US LLC from 1992 until 2017, having taken a brief hiatus in 2007 and from 2010 to 2012. Production of the two ...

and the

Dodge Ram SRT-10 The Dodge Ram SRT-10 is a sport pickup truck that was produced by American automaker Dodge in limited numbers. It was introduced at the January 2002 North American International Auto Show, but was not put into production until 2004. Development ...

pick up (it was originally based on the

Chrysler LA engine The LA engines are a family of pushrod OHV small block 90° V-configured gasoline engines built by Chrysler Corporation. It was factory-installed in passenger vehicles, trucks and vans, commercial vehicles, marine and industrial applications from ...

), but modified by Bristol to produce at 5,600

rpm Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

and of torque at 4,200 rpm. This is in keeping with Bristol's use of

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

engines since 1961. In the more powerful Fighter S, the engine is tuned to produce 628 hp (660 hp at high speed using the ram air effect). The car's weight is . The car has a six-speed manual or four-speed

automatic transmission An automatic transmission (sometimes abbreviated to auto or AT) is a multi-speed transmission used in internal combustion engine-based motor vehicles that does not require any input from the driver to change forward gears under normal driving c ...

, and is

rear-wheel drive Rear-wheel drive (RWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, in which the engine drives the rear wheels only. Until the late 20th century, rear-wheel drive was the most common configuration for cars. Most rear-wheel ...

. It can achieve the sprint in 4.0 seconds (claimed), and enjoys a power-to-weight ratio of . The car has a claimed top speed of and the driver can be tall at maximum. Although sketches and models had been publicized some time before, a complete car was first shown to the press in May 2003. The first drive by a car magazine appears to be that in the April 2005 issue of ''Evo'' magazine. It is not known exactly how many Bristol Fighters were manufactured, but the number is between 9 and 14.

Fighter T

In 2006, Bristol announced the Fighter T, a

turbocharged In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...

version of the Fighter. This was planned to have a modified version of the Chrysler V10 producing and of torque at 4,500 rpm. This also would have made it the first turbocharged petrol-powered V10 production car. The Fighter T was designed to have an improved drag coefficient of 0.27. Bristol claimed that the car would be capable of more than ; however it would have been electronically limited to a "more than adequate" . The Bristol Cars website now states that in fact, no Bristol Fighter T's were ever produced "... (the planned turbo version with 1050bhp never did make it to production)...

Specifications

References

External links

Bristol Cars: Fighter

Bristol Owners Club, Bristol Fighter

''Autocar'' review

Top Gear: Bristol Fighter T preview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bristol Fighter (Car) Bristol vehicles, Fighter (car) Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Coupés Cars introduced in 2004 Automobiles with gull-wing doors Grand tourers 2010s cars