It was the Aldington brothers who imported BMWs from 1934-9 that gave rise not only to the Bristol car, but also to the more individual post-war Frazer Nash models from AFN Ltd.
One of the most charismatic and truly impressive models from that legendary British sports car marque, the Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica is quite simply the most highly regarded of all post war cycle winged sports racing cars. First displayed at the 1948 London Motor Show, a new Frazer Nash was shown suspended, in bare form, from a spring balance to demonstrate its lightweight construction as the basis of AFN Limiteds brand new 6-cylinder Bristol engined Frazer Nash High Speed model.
In the Spring of 1949 the new cars began racing in the Giro di Sicilia and the Mille Miglia, and then at Le Mans. The remarkable cycle-winged Frazer-Nash Le Mans Replica was so named after Frazer-Nashs third place at Le Mans that year, the drive shared by Norman Culpan and H. J. Aldington, head of AFN, in the original High Speed model in the first post war Le Mans 24-hour race, the winning car being a Ferrari Barchetta. The Frazer Nash proved a brilliantly successful competitor in all kinds of sports car competition of the period, be it on the Mille Miglia, at Pescara, Oporto, or on the Targa Florio, handling wonderfully well and producing sufficient power and torque from its reliable BMW 328-derived Bristol 6-cylinder engine to put far more modern looking machinery to intense shame! Just 34 of the original Le Mans Replicas were produced by the factory in 120bhp form.
