The Bristol 408 is a British

luxury car A luxury car is a car that provides increased levels of comfort, equipment, amenities, quality, performance, and associated status compared to moderately priced cars. The term is subjective and reflects both the qualities of the car and the ...

made by Bristol Cars between 1963 and 1966. Unusually for Bristol, a slightly revised version was launched during the middle of the model's production run in 1965 and known as the 408 Mark II. Mechanically the Bristol 408 was identical to is predecessor the 407, which had been a major departure for Bristol with its use of a Chrysler V8 engine and

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 ...

. However, outwardly there were some major changes. The frontal styling of the 407 – which had been a carry-over from the six-cylinder 406 – was discarded and in its place was a rectangular grille with pronounced horizontal bars. Another major change were the turn indicator lamps, which on the 408 were wide and rectangular in contrast to the 407's round lamps.

408 Mark II

Due to safety concerns, the push-button layout of the automatic transmission was modified through the use of a safety lever to prevent an unwary person moving the car out of "Park". There were also rectangular instead of circular push-buttons for the gear selector in this version of the car. The transmission itself was now of cast alloy and was over lighter than that of previous eight-cylinder Bristols. The engine of the 407 and original 408 had a capacity of , but for the 408 Mark II this was increased to (5,211 cubic centimetres).

Notes

External links

Bristol Owners Club, Bristol Type 408 Saloon
408 Bristol 408 Cars introduced in 1963 Sports sedans Rear-wheel-drive vehicles {{automobile-stub