They both used Bristol’s famous
straight-six engine but, as discovers, the 406 Zagato and AC Greyhound went
about their business in very different ways
Fifty years ago, these two must have topped
the league as a way of spending the most amount of money on the least amount of
car. In fact, in 1960 there was no more expensive 2-litre car for sale anywhere
in the world than the near-$7,500 Bristol 406 Zagato.
Six were created at the behest of Tony
Crook when he was still Anthony Crook Motors Ltd (the UK Zagato agent) and,
although they were not easy to sell at the time, these 406Zs are now among the
most revered of all the six-cylinder Bristols. Of the six built, all with minor
trim and detail differences, five remain accounted for – four in the UK and one
in Australia. The missing car was written off in the late 1960s.
406
Zagato And AC Greyhound
AC built many more Greyhounds (82 from
1960-’63) but the car made far fewer friends. Created as a four-place coupé to
appease those loyal family-man customers who were outgrowing their two-seaters,
it was never really forgiven for its handling problems and amateurish styling.
The Greyhound is a car you have to see from
the right angle to ‘get’. It looks fairly seductive from the back (have you
spotted the Wolseley tail-lights?) but then, like certain people, is a letdown
when you see it’s unresolved ‘face’. The features are in the right place yet it
is neither square-jawed enough to have machismo, or pouting enough to be
feminine.
The intervening years have inevitably
softened views towards the Greyhound. I liked this one much more than the first
I drove 20 years ago – which I’m embarrassed to see I was very rude about – but
the essence of the critics’ original gripes are still there to be found.
AC
Greyhound
Although they share engines and gearboxes –
plus a certain hand-wrought sensibility – the Greyhound and the 406Z is not
really the same kind of motor car at all. The AC was an attempt to go back to a
more comfortable sort of touring saloon, cast in the mold of the post-war 2
Liter. By building the svelte 406 Zagato, however, Bristol – via Tony Crook was
looking to do the opposite: make a sportier model to please customers who
wanted to replace their ageing short-chassis 404s, or thought the latest 406
saloons had become a bit too grown up.
In fact, the 406 was the most sorted of the
six cylinders Bristol, with four-wheel disc brakes, overdrive as standard and a
Watt linkage on the rear axle, which also had a usefully lower roll center. A
bigger 2.2-litre engine gave the 406 the torque to counter its extra weight,
but the thing looked flabby to some people and just seemed a lot of car for so
little engine.
406
Zagato
Something leaner-looking built by Zagato
could probably be produced more cheaply but sold for more money. So Bristol
sent six 406 chassis to Milan – plus two men from Anthony Crook Motors to make
sure the work was being done to ‘Bristol standards’. Enter, at the 1959 Earls Court
show, the 406 Zagato.
Here was a slender jewel of a car with a
sensuous grille, long front wings and an angular roof, an elegant combination
of racy curves and sharp-edged formality. It was still a nominal four-seater on
the original wheelbase but five inches lower and narrower than the 406 saloon,
with a trademark Zagato/Abarth crease down the middle of the roof. With
faired-in lights, the Zagato boasted a smaller frontal area and, with much
simpler trim and clipped length, it was 672lb lighter than the 406 saloon.
A
bigger 2.2-litre engine gave the 406 the torque to counter its extra weight,
but the thing looked flabby to some people and just seemed a lot of car for so
little engine.
Two short-chassis 406S variants – the first
for Crook’s daughter Carole – were built in 1960. This squat, pretty two-seater
was the car that persuaded David Brown to commission the visually similar Aston
Martin DB4GT Zagato.
In many ways, the Greyhound ($4,777.5
including reclining seats, fog lights and two-speed wipers) was damned before
it ever got the chance to establish its reputation. The styling was so poorly
received in 1959 that a revamp was required before sales began. Then, in 1961,
The Motor delivered the final blow by criticizing the handling for its tendancy
towards ‘straight-line wander’ and ‘sudden break-away’ at the back. On the
coil-spring and diagonal swinging-arm rear suspension (unique to the
Greyhound), the writer said that it ‘seems to leave scope for considerable
improvement’. Harsh.
406
Zagato interior
Ten inches longer and four inches wider
than the Aceca, the Greyhound was a little too big to be merely a 2+2, but not
quite roomy enough to qualify as a family-sized four-seat. It boasted an alloy
body over a tubular frame, and its coil sprung suspension should have been an
improvement on its predecessors. In fairness, some of its problems could have
lain with AC’s hesitation over the correct combination of wheel and tire. Apart
from a handful with Zephyr and AC ‘sixes’, all Greyhounds featured Bristol
units in 100B, D2 or 2.2-litre/110 form. When they had little value in the
1970s and ’80s, many were plundered for these engines to be transplanted into
Aces and other more ‘deserving’ cases – but no longer. This Greyhound features
the 110 specification (2.2/105bhp), which makes a lively car of it.
