Welcome To Classic Bristol Buses!
a website by Nigel Furness


DNS by  Thornet, to whom we are truly grateful.

Website hosted by Frampton Computer Services 

This site is Dedicated to the passenger carrying vehicles whose chassis were constructed at Brislington in Bristol by the erstwhile Bristol Commercial Vehicle company.

Site news

Last updated: 17/12/2020

Bringing you information on classic Bristol buses since 1994.

 

This website is undergoing revision as of December 2020. As a lot of the additional content has been rendered redundant by Facebook, once these revisions are complete the site will not be updated further, but will remain live. If you are interested in my other preservation activities, you can find out more here.

Contents

About this web site

A pictorial survey of Preserved Bristol types

About Bristol-built buses - History and development

News and information about rallies, remanufacture of spares etc.

Links to other pages of interest - mainly transport related

The story of my bus - a disjointed account of my restoration efforts

The VI Blues Band - great music, here in your browser!

 

Low cost website hosting based in Frampton Cotterell Bristol

About this website

I created this website in September 1994, largely as a learning exercise to give me some familarity with HTML prior to taking a job as a software engineer developing web-based applications. Of course, that's all history now, as are most of my good intentions for this site and the web has moved on (a little) since then. I became adept with CSS, PHP, AJAX, Javascript, SQL, Apache and Perl but these days, seriously cannot be arsed so Wordpress for the Bone Idle (not the on-line version as used by the TFBI!) is my usual tool now. Or Ruby. Or Drupal. Who cares? They're all just as good (or bad) as each other.

The information contained herein is as accurate as I can make it and is provided for the interest of researchers, restorers and anyone interested in the preservation and restoration of buses and other vehicles manufactured at the Brislington works of the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company.  My intention was to build up this site as a resource for vehicle owners and a jumping-off point for historians.  

If you have any suggestions for items to be included, please email me

Many of the buses depicted on my picture pages have been meticulously restored and painstakingly maintained to a high standard by enthusiasts. All contribute to keeping Britain's transport and manufacturing heritage alive. It is worth remembering that Britain was once known as the "workshop to the world" and each one of these lovingly cherished vehicles reflects a part of this period in our history.

A great deal of time, effort and money goes into preserving an elderly vehicle - even a small car can take many months or even years to restore - so the task of restoring a large commercial vehicle and maintaining it in a safe and roadworthy condition should not be underestimated.  Many hours are spent in searching for spare parts or locating vehicles to be dismantled.  As one who gains much pleasure from the experience of owning, driving and travelling on vintage vehicles of all sizes, this site is my tribute to all the hard work put in by the enthusiasts who own these fine vehicles. Many of the vehicles pictured are owned by people who used to be members of the Bristol Commercial Vehicle Register in pre-Facebook days, which existed to support and nurture the preservation of Bristol manufactured heavy commercial vehicles.

 

 

If you own a Bristol, then you really ought to have joined the 

Bristol Commercial Vehicle Register 

for Bristol owners and operators the world over


- visitors to this site since November 1994!