John Simmons had never seen one before, had never even heard of an Arnolt Bristol. But when he spotted one on the Virginia Military Institute campus where he was a senior, the car’s design made the engineering student weak in the knees.
Soon thereafter, the car was posted on a bulletin board for sale by another VMI student who needed the money for graduate school. Simmons’s time had come.
Simmons was already a British car enthusiast; he counted a Triumph TR4 as his daily driver. But this Arnolt Bristol was something he had to own. The fact that it had a modified Chevy 283 engine and GM three-speed gearbox didn’t faze him. So he borrowed the $1,100 asking price from his father and made plans to pick it up during the 1968 Thanksgiving holiday.
“So my brother and me loaded up the TR4 and started on the 200-mile drive from Lexington, Virginia to White Stone,” says Simmons, 66, from Charlotte, North Carolina. “But the Triumph jumped a timing chain and stopped running. Fortunately my aunt lived near where we broke down, so we borrowed her Buick and towed the broken TR4 to her house,” he says. (The TR4 stayed there through the following summer.) “Then we used her Buick to pick up the Arnolt.”
John Simmons bought this rare Arnolt Bristol in 1968 from a student who needed to sell it for graduate school tuition. The Chevy-powered car was a daily driver before being locked away for 40 years. TOM COTTER
Simmons is undecided on what to do with the car. Restoration is expensive, especially locating the original Bristol engine. So he may perform a modern engine swap and enjoy the car as is. TOM COTTER
Arnolt Bristols have an interesting history. Stanley “Wacky” Arnolt, a Chicago businessman and sports car enthusiast, purchased driving chassis from Bristol Cars, Ltd., in England, and had them shipped to Bertone in Italy, where they were wrapped in an attractive (if edgy) steel body. The cars were powered by the 130-horsepower, six-cylinder Bristol engine, which was designed before World War II for use in both airplanes and the BMW 328 sports car.
The Arnolt Bristol’s body seems tall and sits high on its chassis. Designer Franco Scaglione (who would also design the Alfa Romeo BAT series) had to work around the tall Bristol chassis and engine combination.
A total of 142 Arnolt Bristols were manufactured between 1953 and 1958, including 136 roadsters and 6 coupes. They were marketed as an American car and sold through Arnolt’s headquarters in Chicago. Simmons’s Bristol has serial number 3071, which translates to the 71st model manufactured.
The cars came in three models: a stripped racing model, the Bolide, and the Deluxe. The Bolide was well appointed with necessities, but the Deluxe featured luxury items such as door handles, an instrument pod, door panels, and side windows.
Despite racing successes at Sebring and other events, the cars never sold well. Today, only about 85 exist in varying conditions. Simmons’s car, after being used as a daily driver for about eight years, has sat obediently in his garage for almost the last four decades.
But that hibernation is about to end, and a rejuvenation is about to begin. “I plan to keep it looking unrestored, but because the original engines are so expensive, I’ll either keep the Chevy in it, or replace it with a GM V-6 or a Volvo B-20,” he says. “It will look original, but be more affordable.”
