Bristol was once a builder of some lovely cars, powerful grand touring cars that sometimes had grilles like a BMW and sometimes like trapezoidal maws with a cyclopean headlamp. In more recent decades, though, Bristol decayed into a sort of incredibly British zombie, with zombie-grade build quality and subsisting on a diet of pure, unrefined brand snobbery and nothing else. In 2011, they went into receivership and changed owners. They’re being liquidated again, but this time it looks like a disgruntled worker is getting the last laugh, based on this post from their website.
It’s been deleted now, but thankfully Twitter user York on a Fork managed to snag a screenshot:
Everything seems just dandy at Bristol cars pic.twitter.com/b7DJCCYJcI
— York on a Fork (@yorkonafork) August 24, 2020
Here’s the full text:
A NON-APOLOGY
23 August 2020
A message from the Chairman
Our blind self-interest, total lack of management skills, fiscal incompetence (not to mention stupidity and nepotism) caused this once-proud British marque to once again fall into receivership. If we had any honour, we would apologise to the individuals and suppliers who have been left out of pocket. But we don’t and won’t. We don’t even pay our own staff.
Let’s face it, it’s not the first time – you should have done your resech. A quick Google search would have shown our history of non-payment, defaults and cynical ordering of services and supplies while there’s no cash in the kitty.
Meanwhile, we’re busy on our next phase of fleecing investors, suppliers and staff while I add to my impressive stable of Ferraris, Porsches, Mercedes’ and Rolls Royces at my large private estate.
Yours insincerely,
Kamal Siddiqi
First, we should be clear that we do not believe that Kamal Siddiqi, the CEO of Kamkorp, the company that bought Bristol, wrote any of this. It appears to be the work of a disgruntled Bristol employee who still had access to Bristol’s website.
Bristol went into liquidation in March, and it’s not clear why this message went up just yesterday. I’d like to be clear that the only copy of this letter I’ve found so far is in this tweet, so it’s possible this is a hoax, but I kind of doubt it.
This feels very on-brand for recent-era Bristol, a company that made a lot of promises that were never delivered upon. Besides, this would be a very weird, niche thing to hoax, for very little payback.
Bristol has been building crappy, wildly expensive and exclusive cars for a while now, and I have to say this feels like a fittingly ignoble end for a company that’s been in a slow crash for decades.