China’s thirst for former British automotive brands and cars shows no signs of abating any time soon, with yet another Chinese company snapping up a British auto company. The iconic British brand, Bristol, has been purchased by the Xinjiang No1 Tractor Company, a state owned company that is famed for its high quality tractors that resemble John Deere products in the largely agricultural based provincial economy.
SAIC is probably the most famous for snapping up MG and the remains of Rover, which they turned into Roewe for the Chinese market, but other British cars have been built in China such as the Maestro hatchback which was made by Qingdao ETSong, and also the Ital which was built by First Automobile Works in Chengdu.
Bristol was forced into bankruptcy in early March due to poor sales, 22 of the 27 strong staff have already been let go by the company at the Bristol based manufacturing facility. Chinese automotive media are already pushing a great deal of coverage on the buy out which is being shown as another feather in the cap for China’s overseas mergers and acquisitions strategy. Financial details on the takeover are still extremely thin on the ground, but early reports indicate that the new owners will move the production facility to XinJiang province where they will be able to take sell to the central Asian market which has grown wealthy over the last decade due to high mineral deposits. Bristol’s famous Kensington high street dealership will continue to operate, but the new owners plan for dealerships in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and also in other central Asian capitals such as Almaty, Bishkek and Dushanbe.
Is this an April Fool’s joke? I can’t see why any Chinese company would be interested in such a specialist British manufacturer, especially a company that is known for tractors!
Re: tractors, tractor manfacturer David Brown bought Aston Martin. Lamborghini also began with them.
April the 1st? Surely….?
It must be an April fool, not the first, the other one stated that Morgan had bought them!
I wouldn’t think this is that much of a joke, I mean, it makes sense – buy the prestige basically! I wish a British company would buy it though.
Buy the prestige, miss the entire point of it and sell the cars (some of whom are still based on a Pre Second World War BMW chassis) to just about everybody, wave goodbye to the prestige.
Bristol works because its quirky and unique, flogging them wholesale will just kick all the brands uniqueness and prestige out the window.
Finally, China has their own exotic sports car company.
Well just possibly the car might be made to a better standard than the laughably bad quality that has been evident for the past twenty years. Bristol Cars has struggled along helped out by the very few deluded souls crazy enough to buy the perceived image and uninformed enough to realise that they were buying badly designed and assembled old stock parts. True the engine was effortless, the intentions good and the styling had recently improved from the disastrously awkward creations foisted upon customers for so long.
The great shame is that it was all so different in the days of the 400 series cars and even the early 600′s. Anthony Crook was a very good man steering the company through many years of good times. Will the Chinese realise that and go back to building those fine cars and doing it properly? Doubtful and if they do, will those who should buy them, want it with a “Made in PRC” badge?..except in Beijing????
BBC News Reports:
Bristol Cars bought by Kamkorp Autokraft
New owners have been found for Bristol Cars which was put into administration last month with the loss of 22 jobs.
A spokesman for administrators RSM Tenon confirmed the company had been bought by Kamkorp Autokraft, part of the Frazer-Nash group.
So who HAS bought it?!
As far as I know, they don’t. There is a LuoYang No.1 Tractor Factory though.