Frazer Nash-BMW 328

Aldington ran AFN, the Frazer Nash company at the Falcon Works, Isleworth, as its managing director. The Archives give the agreement in their note on him.

The first cars came in 1935. "The imported cars were fitted with 'Frazer Nash-BMW' radiator badges to brand them with a familiar name," the Archives go on, and Motor Sport's obituary of Aldington put it more sharply: the BMW "came to Isleworth, disguised as a Frazer Nash-BMW". Andrew Blow, writing from Bristol's records, says the licence covered the sale of BMW's six-cylinder range in Britain and the right to build BMW cars there. AFN gave the earlier models type numbers of its own (Types 34, 40, 45 and 55); the 328 kept BMW's, and Motor Sport's lists called it the Frazer-Nash-B.M.W. Type 328.

The BMWs became most of AFN's trade. Blow counts 707 Frazer Nash-BMWs sold from 1934 to 1939, against 35 of the chain-drive Frazer Nashes: one in ten was a sports car, one in ten a chassis bodied and finished in Britain, and the rest saloons (sedans) and cabriolets.⁠source 3​source 4​source 5​source 6

The British cars had right-hand steering from the first. Of the three prototypes BMW built in June 1936, 85003 was, in Jenkinson's words, "the first Type 328 with righthand steering, destined for Great Britain", and it went to Isleworth as Aldington's own car. The name changed too. Jenkinson wrote in 1988 that the standard two-seater was sold in Britain as the "328 TT", after the works team's success in the 1936 Tourist Trophy, and in 1939 AFN called its engine "the T.T. engine".

British buyers asked for changes of their own, and Motor Sport thought they cost the cars some speed. It explained in 1938 why AFN's white prototype ran faster than the rest.

At least one British body went on a 328: a two-colour coupé by Bertelli, shown on AFN's stand at the London motor show of October 1936. In May 1939 Motor Sport announced that "The famous Type 328 is now to be made in this country", under the right AFN's licence gave it; no source read records a 328 built in Britain.⁠source 2​source 7​source 8​source 9​source 10​source 5

The specification below gives AFN's price, the same in every list from the London show of October 1936, where the white 85003 stood with delivery promised early in 1937, to Motor Sport's guide for 1939. It put the 328 near the top of AFN's range. In October 1937 the chain-drive Frazer Nashes ran from the Falcon at £425 to the TT Replica at £600, with the supercharged "Shelsley" alone above the 328 at £850, and the Frazer Nash-BMW Type 55 two-seater cost £475.

Cecil Clutton, who admired the car's design, found fault with its price in 1940.

In November 1940 Motor Sport's writer believed AFN "were selling 328s at more than list price after the war had started".⁠source 2​source 11​source 6​source 12​source 13​source 14

The production readings below give two counts. The Frazer Nash Archives, which hold AFN's records, count the 328s AFN imported from 1937 to 1939. The BMW Historic Motor Club counts the 328s built with right-hand drive. Neither says what else its figure takes in, and they differ. All but two of the imported cars survive, by the Archives' count.

The last cars came late. Aldington had six 328 chassis on their way from BMW as the war began; they were held at the docks when they arrived and released in the end, Blow writes, without saying whether they are among the Archives' count.⁠source 1​source 15​source 2​source 5

AFN brought the 328 to British racing before any customer had one. For the Tourist Trophy on the Ards circuit on 5 September 1936 it entered three of BMW's works cars, painted green, and nominated the drivers: Prince Bira in 85001, A. F. P. Fane in 85002 and Aldington in the right-hand-drive 85003. They finished first, second and third in the two-litre class and third, seventh and ninth overall in a handicap race won by Dixon and Dodson's Riley.

At Donington on 4 September 1937 four works 328s ran as Frazer Nash-BMWs, and Bira finished third overall and first in the two-litre class. At Donington a year later the 328s were second to sixth in the class, behind Jock Horsfall's Aston Martin.

AFN also ran the cars against the clock at Brooklands. In April 1937 AFN had S. C. H. Davis, sports editor of The Autocar, drive 85003 round the track for an hour under RAC observation, and the car was driven home to Isleworth afterwards (Jenkinson). In Motor Sport's words, one of these cars "covered over 102 miles in an hour at Brooklands under R.A.C. observation", and in 1938 Aldington put "over 107 miles in an hour" into the MCC High Speed Trial.

Fane, AFN's driver, won the two-litre class of the 1938 Mille Miglia in one of BMW's works cars, entered in Frazer Nash's name, finishing eighth overall with James beside him; BMW 328 Mille Miglia tells the race. He was killed flying on active service with the RAF in 1942.⁠source 2​source 16​source 17​source 18​source 6​source 12​source 19​source 20​source 21

At the London show in October 1936 Motor Sport thought the 328 on AFN's stand perhaps the best displayed of the sports cars there. A year later its buyers' guide summed up AFN's BMWs.

The Autocar road-tested a 328 as well: a reader wrote to Motor Sport in August 1938 that "the acceleration figures are, I think, the best unsupercharged ones irrespective of size obtained in the 'Autocar' tests". The steering had its own praise, on the BMW 328 Roadster page, and Clutton's verdict of 1940 is under the price above.⁠source 10​source 6​source 22

In 1945 Aldington went to Munich, as Jonathan Wood and Andrew Blow both tell it, for the car he had raced, and crashed, at Hamburg in 1939 (Wood) and left in Germany for repair (Blow). Blow dates the journey that brought BMW's drawings and prototype engines to Britain to October 1945. He came home with a racing car as well.

Which of the 1940 roadsters it was, the sources do not agree; BMW 328 Mille Miglia sets out the claims. Wood says John Perrett, the chief designer of AFN and Bristol, later drove it between Isleworth and Filton. In 1947, at Aldington's persuasion, the 328's chassis designer Fritz Fiedler joined AFN, and he was lent to Bristol as a consultant on its Type 400 (the Archives). The six that grew from the 328's engine powered the Bristol 400 and the post-war Frazer Nashes; the engine page tells what Bristol changed.

The pre-war cars went on racing: Jenkinson wrote in 1988 that after the war the Frazer Nash-BMWs were "much sought-after" for the variety of events in which the sport was getting back on its feet. AFN itself went on to sell another German car, as Porsche's agent in Britain from 1954.⁠source 23​source 5​source 1​source 3​source 7