The Bristol 406, 1958 to 1961

The 2.2-litre engine was made by enlarging the bores of the existing 2-litre to take larger pistons. A twin-SU installation was tried and found inferior to the three Solex carburettors. After the Earls Court show a piston seizure was traced to bore distortion between the Siamese cylinders; the cure was to bore out the block, fit liners and revise the compression and oil-control rings.

The A-bracket that had located the rear axle since the 400 gave way to a Watt linkage, its rocking lever pivoted on the back of the differential casing, and Bristol adopted a bought-out Salisbury hypoid axle. Dunlop disc brakes on all four wheels put Bristol among the first car makers to adopt discs, and ended the brake-fade complaints of the early cars. The handbrake had its own pads, adjustable with a screwdriver through holes in the rear wheels. Unlike the rivals it was compared with in 1959 and 1960, the 406 was not offered with an automatic gearbox.

A model of the 406 was tested in the aircraft company's wind tunnel. Bristol also looked outside: a body by Beutler of Thun on the 2.2 chassis was shown at the 1957 Paris Salon and at Earls Court, flown from Geneva to London in a Bristol Freighter, but neither George White nor Tony Crook liked it. The first Filton-designed prototype was completed in 1957, and the definitive production car, 406 BHU, was described in The Motor in August 1958.

It had two doors, thin-framed windows, no conventional upper door pillar and a boot lid that rose nearly to the vertical. Its grille began as a brougham-style arrangement of iron bars, became chromed strips and finally simple wire mesh, to let more air through.

Jones Brothers' bodies used a simple but strong inner framework of steel panels, with aluminium outer panels formed on Bristol's own body buck. At Filton the chief inspector, Harold Reeves, had such a reputation that a factory wag said nothing ever got past him. Even the Jones Brothers' ginger cat, which stowed away in a 406 and was found under the bonnet, was lorried home to Willesden as "an approved passenger".

The details were thought through. The front seats had wooden frames, which made it easy to replace the Dunlopillo decades later, and the wash-wipe ran off engine induction depression, giving a second of spray and six seconds of fast wiping, adjustable by a bleed screw. A properly maintained engine kept its full effectiveness for at least 100,000 miles, and the structure outlasted several engines.

The two 406 S cars were between the 404 and the 406 in length. The Filton-bodied car, 406 CHU, did about 100,000 miles with Tony Crook and then some 500,000 more on an Aberdeen vet's rounds; during the sale negotiation there was a sick sheep in its folded rear seats. The second 406 S went to Zagato in Milan for a two-seater coupé body commissioned by Crook, and later belonged to Harry Wareham, chairman of the Bristol Owners' Club from 1987 to 1997.

The 406 Zagato coupé was nearly a foot shorter and lower than the saloon, with a tuned engine, and it sold slowly. A batch of six was built, of which five survived in 2008: two in Britain and one each in Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand.

From 1959 Bristol Cars was a subsidiary of the newly formed Bristol Siddeley Engines. The group studied a larger car, fitting an Armstrong Siddeley Star Sapphire six into a 406-type chassis that the staff nicknamed The Heap, but notes made before the Bristol Siddeley Board meeting of 19 January 1960 recommended shutting the car business "as quickly as conveniently, and as cheaply as possible". George White was not on that Board. He refused to abandon the employees who had joined him at the start or the owners who relied on the factory's service, and Tony Crook promised to back him. On 9 September 1960 White signed the agreement to buy Bristol Cars, with Crook taking two-fifths of the shares; neither could act on capital, shares or new directors without the other.

White's father, Sir Stanley, was still being driven to work in a dark green 406 in the 1960s. In 1961 the 407 replaced the six with a Chrysler V8.

Figures as recorded in period and historical sources, reproduced as quoted rather than as tested figures.