Arnolt
Arnolt Inc. of Chicago and Warsaw, Indiana, sold four different manufacturer's cars with Bertone bodies during the period 1953 to 1968.
Stanley H. "Wacky" Arnolt was a Chicago industrialist, who began importing foreign cars in the 1950s to the United States.
A fortuitous meeting with Bertone at the Turin Auto Show in 1952 resulted in four collaborative efforts between Arnolt and Bertone, involving running gear and engines from the British car manufacturers MG, Aston Martin, Bentley, and Bristol.
The Arnolt-MG is a four-seater Bertone-bodied car based on the MG TD chassis and XPAG 54hp engine.
All looked very much like Scaglione's subsequent Arnolt-Bristol, having sharply creased fender lines, and were open cars without hardtops.
Arnolt then negotiated with Bristol Cars Ltd in the UK for the purchase of 200 of their 404-series chassis and the 1971 cc, six-cylinder 130 hp engines from the earlier 403 model.
Arnolt needed to find a new chassis source to meet his obligation to Bertone, in whom he had invested heavily, after MG proved unable to fill the original order for 200 cars.
[1] The chassis Bristol supplied were sent to Carrozzeria Bertone where they received a highly aerodynamic body with a flowing design that allowed the minimal hood height to clear the cars' three single barrel Solex 32 carburetors.
Franco Scaglione handled these with particular genius - first by incorporating a hood scoop to lower the surrounding sheet metal, and then by incorporating sharply creased fender lines out over the wheels to draw the eye's attention away from the unusually tall peak in the hood.
[4] The cars were available in four body styles: competition—a stripped road racer; bolide—a slightly better-appointed road racer; deluxe—a better-appointed version of the bolide (side windows and convertible top, instruments mounted in a housing in front of the driver, glove box set in the dash); and coupé, with pop-up headlights.
Factory options for the Arnolt-Bristol included a front sway bar, remote shifter, 11-inch Alfin drum brakes, convertible top, bumpers, Borrani KO steel wheels (nine sets were sold, and one car was sold with Borrani wire wheels) and several different rear end gear ratios.
Approximately 85 of the cars are still known to be extant, in conditions that vary from needing complete restoration to concours quality.
One result is that several sources claim only three coupés were built, when there were in fact six: one was sold in France and the other two in Spain (the chassis numbers of all of which are recorded in the Bristol Owner's Club registry).
At the Paris Auto Show in 1955, an up-and-coming actor, Lee Marvin, saw the Arnolt-Bristol coupé and purchased it.
In later years, Marvin would win the Oscar for Best Actor, and after his death, his ultra-rare Arnolt-Bristol Coupé (the only Arnolt ever built with the coved front fenders that would also appear on the Corvette later in its C1 production run) sold at auction for $451,000.
