The Bristol Bullet and Project Pinnacle, 2014 to 2016

Bristol's website of 2013 described the company as "part of the Frazer-Nash Group of Companies", committed to preserving the marque, refurbishing its sales, service, parts and restoration facilities and offering classic and contemporary Bristols for sale "while the new luxury Bristol Car is in development". A page headed "The Future", carried in 2014, set out a vision of a range-extended electric Bristol: brushless motors at each wheel, a front-mounted generator that never drove the wheels, and a battery pack under the floor, drawing on Frazer-Nash Research's work. That car was not the Bullet, and the archive does not record what became of it.

On 5 September 2014, at the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace, Bristol announced "significant new investments" and a new car. "The first new Bristol car since 2003 will be launched at the Kensington High Street showroom in 2015 in the shape of an all-new 70th anniversary model, codenamed Project Pinnacle." The announcement described the car as "a reference to Bristol Cars' rich and exciting heritage, executed as a modern take on the best of British craftsmanship and engineered to excite as a high performance Bristol car", and said that millions of pounds had been invested since 2011 to re-establish the company. Speaking for Bristol, Sir George White, whose family had founded the Bristol Aeroplane Company and the car division, said that 2015 would mark the company's seventieth year and spoke of "the advanced development of an all-new super-luxury grand tourer" alongside Pinnacle. The general manager, Julian Ramshaw, called the announcements the near-completion of "'Bristol is Back' - phase 1".

The 2015 launch did not happen. By July 2016 Bristol's homepage was still describing Project Pinnacle as a car to be launched at Kensington, now with its powertrain confirmed: "a BMW powerplant". A concept ran up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed that summer, and Bristol's own news feed quoted Autocar's report that it offered "a first glimpse of what the production model may look like when it goes on sale in 2017".

The car was unveiled at the end of July 2016 as the Bristol Bullet. Bristol's page described it as "the first new Bristol car since 2003", an "all-new 70th Anniversary model", and said that the Bullet "signifies the re-birth of the brand with a design and character respecting the company's rich British heritage - in aviation, commercial and luxury automotive - delivered with a contemporary approach to performance and comfort".

At its heart, in Bristol's words, beat Hercules: "a powerful, naturally aspirated V8. The 4.8L power plant, manufactured by BMW and finished by Bristol, is an appropriately refined yet muscular engine for BULLET's position as an anniversary celebration." The name continued Bristol's habit of borrowing from its aeronautical past: the Bristol Hercules was the sleeve-valve radial engine that powered the Beaufighter and many other wartime aircraft. Bristol offered a brochure for download "for full specifications"; that document, "Bullet-Brochure-2017.pdf", has not been recovered, and this page does not repeat specifications that cannot be checked against it.

Independent reports of the launch recorded further figures that Bristol issued at the time, including an intended run of 70 cars. Those figures will be added here once the brochure or a press release is recovered and can be quoted directly.

What Bristol announced: a seventieth-anniversary car for launch in 2015, then 2016; a BMW-sourced V8; a production model on sale in 2017; a brochure of full specifications. What the record verifies: the Bullet was shown in July 2016 and remained on Bristol's website, with its brochure link, into 2019. The company's website carried no announcement of first deliveries, no price and no production figure. The project did not progress to series production, and the companies of that era were later wound up. The story of how the marque passed to Bristol Cars Group is told in Ownership and continuity.

The name has caused confusion. In 2003 Bristol described a restored 1950s two-seater prototype that factory staff had known as "The Bullet"; that car inspired the Blenheim Speedster and is described on the Speedster page. The Bullet of 2016 was a new design and a different car. Bristol's own history, written in 2015, credited Anthony Crook and Toby Silverton with "the Speedster, Bullet and 411 Series 6"; since that history was written before the 2016 car was shown, its "Bullet" can only be the earlier one.