Bristol cars has launched its its first new car in 10 years, and only the 18th it’s ever built. It is called the Bullet, and it will make its public debut at the Salon Privé supercar show at Blenheim Palace on September 1-3.

The Bristol Bullet is a hand-built speedster that brings this fusty, quirky, rare yet high-quality marque bang up to date.

Julian Ramshaw, general manager of Bristol Cars Ltd, said: ‘’The Bullet celebrates 70 years of design and innovation at Bristol Cars. This unique speedster sets the tone for the future of Bristol Cars – with a focus on luxury, performance and elegance, it really is the ultimate driver’s car. We are delighted that the first public showing of the Bristol Bullet will be at Salon Privé.’’

You can’t even call Bristol a low-volume manufacturer really; at its height, in the Fifties and Sixties, it was building maybe 200 cars. It took on the softly-softly catchee monkey approach and has worked it extraordinarily well: not only do its cars sell for very high sums - you’ll get a small amount of change from £250,000 for the Bullet - but the quality of the coachwork and chassis are evidenced by the fact that of all the Bristols made since 1947, 70 per cent of them are still on the road.