Description Rare and beautiful Superleggera construction from Touring of Milan; the genesis of the 401 models; an important car for the International stage HJ Aldington, owner and driving force behind Frazer-Nash, was deeply involved in car development at Bristol.

His experience and contacts at BMW from before the war influenced the thinking and direction of car manufacture at Bristol at a time when they were working out how to scale their business which so recently had been at full tilt making fighting aircraft.

Various directions were considered, including a radial engined car using experience gained from their aircraft engines.

In the end, Aldington's suggestion of using the terrific pre-war BMW 328 engine (or a derivative of) and a chassis closely based on the BMW 326 was clearly the way to go.

The ex-head of BMW design worked on the new car, which to Aldington's frustration still had a body built on pre-war principles - aluminium panels over an ash frame - not as cutting edge ...