Chassis Number: 4065362
Any car-mad schoolboy of the early 1950s would have coveted the contemporary Dinky Toy model of this breathtakingly futuristic-looking aerodynamic Le Mans racing coupe. At the 1954 edition of the renowned daylong French endurance race, the British factory team of three such Bristol 450s purred past the checkered flag to finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd in their 2-liter category, and 7-8-9 overall. The 1954-season Works coupes also did battle in that year’s Reims 12-Hour race, and again finished in line-astern team order, on this occasion 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the 2-liter class and 10-11-12 overall. Back again at Le Mans for the 1955 24-Hour challenge, the revised and updated team of Bristol 450C cars repeated their 1-2-3 clean sweep of the 2-liter class, and again took the checkered flag 7-8-9 overall. In effect, these identical back-to-back clean-sweep results at Le Mans — in the world’s most coveted endurance-racing classic — represented “mission accomplished” as far as the Bristol company’s management was concerned, and, even though not involved in the disastrous accident during that 1955 race that caused so many spectator fatalities, the marque withdrew from racing involvement. Only one open-bodied 450 model survived the general dismantle-and-scrap decision that followed, so every one of the original sleek, twin-finned coupe cars was broken up — and hence became long lost to posterity. However, here Bonhams proudly offers this magnificently hand-crafted re-creation Bristol 450 Le Mans, assembled from a rare combination of original and reproduction components and beautifully bodied in the historic former factory team’s most sophisticated streamlined form.
